


The Moon's a Tricky Bitch

by allthenamesaretakendoooods



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Druids, Dubious Consent, Emissaries, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Home Invasion, Kidnapping, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Rutting, Swearing, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:11:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 64,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthenamesaretakendoooods/pseuds/allthenamesaretakendoooods
Summary: Original A/B/O fic.Amy Kemp's life is unceremoniously, and violently, taken away from her when she's transformed into a were, without her knowledge or consent.  Now, she's wrapped up in a world that doesn't make sense to her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright. Sterek fanfiction is to blame for this. I have read soooo many a/b/o fics that I have been possessed with the need to add my own take on this concept. But I couldn't just write some pleasant smut for established characters. Nooooo, this original bitch came out of me instead. Feel free to give comments and feedback as I'm not entirely sure what is happening here. Right now its violence and lots of swearing commentary. I'm beginning to suspect this is not prone to smut. Which is so unfortunate! But I think its not that kinda story. -shrug-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy was simply trying to put her life together. She put her ex behind her (though memories with him kept haunting her) and she was starting a new life (though she had no friends) .... Okay maybe putting her life together wasn't going very well.

_You're doing it wrong. God. Why do you have to be so stupid? _

Amy mentally shook her head at herself. The patient in her chair was preoccupied with her phone, waiting for Amy to finish prepping for her cleaning. He doesn't seem to have noticed yet that its taking Amy twice as long as necessary to get ready because Amy had mistakenly grabbed the wrong tools. 

_This is a basic cleaning, not a root canal. What the hell is wrong with you?_

She had to quickly put back the surgical prep gear and grab the cleaning paste. _You do cleanings way more often than surgical prep anyway. What on earth were you thinking? _Amy was adjusting everything, trying to get ordered before the patient realized something was amiss. 

It had been like this all week. Her thoughts scattered, routine tasks taking forever and all the while, this pervasive feeling of fucking up. Even at home, she always felt on edge, a vague sense of wrong-doing looming after her everywhere she went. It was a bit like being stalked. 

[“Will you just go ahead and choose already?” Daniel was annoyed. Again. He was waiting for her to pick the movie they were watching and her indecision always annoyed him. He always got too frustrated to wait and ended up picking anyway. Amy hadn't picked a movie in years but had regular experience in trying to. “You're so fucking dumb. How you can fuck up the smallest things is beyond me,” he said, taking the remote.]

The memory came out of nowhere. Which they tend to. She shook it off with a shudder. She tucked a wayward lock of hair back behind her ear. Her long, mousy brown hair was forever escaping her scrub cap, no matter how she secured it. When she first started here, she constantly got dress coded for her unruly hair. It was straight, just really thick. And for the life of her wouldn't stay where she asked it to. Just another thing she messed up a lot. She looked over the counter and saw that she finally had everything she needed.

“Alright, it looks like we're ready. Go ahead and lean back,” the patient obediently dropped the phone and sat back in the chair. Amy's goggles and cleaning tools were at the ready. “Now, open wide.” Once she was bent to her task, polishing bicuspids and suctioning out excess liquid, her mind finally quieted. She knew what she was doing and was able to just concentrate on the work in front of her. 

Amy Kemp, previously Mrs. Amy Plunkett, had been a dental hygienist for five years. She had done some retail during and after high school, then went back to school for teaching before flunking out/quitting. (The story changed depending on who Amy was telling it to.) She eventually landed on an associate's for dental hygiene, as recommended by her career counselor. Being married to Daniel really was her priority at the time so anything to get her out of school and on with her life was good enough for her. And to be fair, it was the thing she stuck with the longest so that counted for something.

Amy had wrapped up the cleaning with no further incident. She and the dentist had a solid repertoire so the patient's cleaning continued without a hitch and soon Amy was escorting her back towards reception. All day long she brought patients back, used a soothing demeanor to make them comfortable, did the preliminary work for the appointment, assisted the dentist with the stuff outside her pay grade, then escorted them back out when they were done. She made the same, repetitive observations with patients about the weather, the sports or upcoming holiday that seemed relevant in the moment. She nodded at the other hygienists when she walked by, made small talk with Maria at the administrative desk and even traded jokes with the dentist she worked for. 

It was all very... cordial. 

It was also very predictable. And safe. 

A part of her knew that this is what she needed. She needed repetitive and safe. She needed something familiar. Something easy. No matter how it chafed at her, this is what she needed. At least until she figured out her next move. 

She never realized how boring her job actually was until she divorced Daniel. It turns out the rockiness of their relationship distracted her from other aspects of her life. Now that he's gone and she actually had some time to breathe and take in the sights, she's finally noticing some things. Namely, that her job was duller than watching paint dry. She had looked for other jobs briefly before, when she was considering moving to another town. Anything to get away from him. But the idea of leaving her home was too much to bear, so she stuck it out. 

[“Oh, Amy, why don't you just come home?” Her mom's tired voice crackled in the bad reception of her basement apartment. “You could stay in your old room until you get back on your feet. I'm sure you could get your old job back.”

Amy shoved her face into her pillow to avoid groaning out loud. Her old job at Walmart was one of the reasons she left Missouri. 

“Mom, I couldn't do that.”

“Of course you can. Your dad will help you drive back.”

In the distance on the other end, Amy could faintly hear her dad shouting “No, I won't!”

Her mom's voice got further away but increased in volume as she yelled back at him, “Yes, you are!” Her regular check-in phone calls to her parents often devolved into them shouting at each other while her mom held her phone out from her face. “She is your daughter and you can go get her!”

“I didn't tell her to divorce that boy!” Amy could clearly see her dad sitting in his usual recliner, scowling judgmentally at her divorcing Daniel the same way he did whenever she was caught out late in high school. 

“Kevin Kemp!”]

The distracted thoughts have been so bad lately. Amy shook it off again and turned back to her work again. All day long it was an ongoing struggle to refocus. She wondered if other people had this kind of problem. She wanted to ask someone, but wasn't really close enough to anyone for that kind of conversation. 

One of the other things she noticed in the wake of Daniel's absence, is that she somehow had no friends. She knew that she tended to keep herself back from people. There was no need to annoy someone with her problems when they couldn't do anything about it. So many of the people in her life didn't really know what was going on with her and Daniel. She learned after the fact how much of her life was taken up by her crap with Daniel. And therefore, how much she was disconnected from other people due to cutting out that part of her life from conversation with folks. When she finally had space to actually experience the conversations she was having, she realized how empty they were.

_You are such a fuck up. No one likes you and your stupid, dramatic problems. _She shook off that gnawing worthless feeling while saying goodnight to Maria on her way out for the day. Maria didn't even glance up from her monitor. It's hard to expect Maria to care when Maria didn't know. 

And Amy wasn't sure if she wanted Maria to know. She wasn't even sure if she was going to be working with Maria in six months. 

She wanted to stay with the clinic at least until her Christmas bonus came in. Having been with the same employer for five years has its benefits and she's going to get her five year incentive. Since it was only June, it'll be a long wait until then. But by Christmas she'll have figured out what she wanted to do when she grew up. Then in the new place she lands she can make new friends and connect and have actual conversations. And not burden Maria in the meantime. 

Yes. That's the plan. She'll stay here for now. 

Predictable and safe. 

Amy crossed the parking lot to her car. If she got home in time, she could watch three episodes of the Netflix show she was bingeing rather than just two. And she was eating last night's leftovers so she had no need to stop anywhere. As mundanely crummy as the day was, she was glad it was over for a little while before she had to do it all over again tomorrow. 

She pulled her keys out of her purse and turned to unlock her car when she noticed two reflections in the driver's side window instead of one. She could see her own freckled face and an angular faced man standing behind her. She turned to look at who was behind her when suddenly everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had lost time. She was bound by ropes. In the middle of, she assumed to be, a concrete floored abandoned warehouse. From her limited ability to see around her and what TV has taught her, its clearly an abandoned warehouse. The panic started to gear up and build within her. She tried, vainly, to tune into the conversation happening near her to see what was going on.

“...did the research on this! This isn't supposedta' happen!”

“I DID do the research!”

Amy came to with a start. She blinked several times against the bright light. She was on her side on concrete. Cold, hard concrete. 

“Then how did this happen?!”

“I don't know! If I knew that I wouldn't'a called you!”

Her arms and legs couldn't move and her head was hammering and several sizes too big. The sounds of the men shouting seemed to echo in her ears and her mouth tasted sour.

“She's coming 'round.”

It took Amy a beat before she realized that the “she” they mentioned “coming 'round” was her. She turned her head towards the sound of incoming footsteps then quickly winced at the wave of dizziness the movement caused. By the time she looked again, the two men had stopped right next to her. From her vantage point on the floor, she can see scuffed work boots and jeans on two sets of legs. Her neck craned to try to look up but there was shooting pain at the movement and the bright light was too much so she dropped her head back down before taking in anything useful. 

“See? Omega.”

“But she stinks of alpha.”

“She didn't last night.”

Amy tried to piece together what was happening. She hurt. 

Everywhere. 

Her limbs refused to move and there was concrete under her cheek. _Wait. I already knew that. _

She strained to identify something new. Two men. There were two men there. _Yep, already knew that too. _

“Nope, last night she smellt human. This is why we research.”

“I _did_ research!”

_Ummm, there's daylight? _Amy was trying to figure out things. She knew the daylight was important, somehow. 

“**Clearly, you did it wrong!!”**

The men were definitely angry at each other. That much was clear. Amy winced at the booming voice.

“Let's take her to Valentine.” 

“We can't dump the same place twice.”

_It's daytime! _ The sudden realization of what bright daylight meant crashed into her. The last thing Amy remembered was going to her car. In the dark. At night. Last night. Which meant not only was she missing a significant amount of time, but she was also missing work. 

“Hill City?”

“That's where Morgan went.”

She tried to look back up at the two men but this time the searing pain in her neck shot down her whole body, the recoil causing her arms to flail out for balance. Only the flailing was stopped at the wrist. She tugged her hands only to find them bound together. Similar experimenting with her legs showed she was bound at the ankles. Her shoes were missing and she was rope-tied at hands and feet.

_Like a Law & Order SVU episode_ she thought distantly. 

“That was years ago.”

“We took that omega to Valentine years ago, too. The rules are the rules.”

She had lost time. She was bound by ropes. In the middle of, she assumed, a concrete floored abandoned warehouse. From her limited ability to see around her, and what TV has taught her, it's clearly an abandoned warehouse. The panic started to gear up and build within her. She tried, vainly, to tune into the conversation happening near her to see what was going on. 

“Let's head west. Find someplace for her out that a' way.” 

“Alright. Lemme grab the stuff.”

Find someplace for her? Out west? Amy was internally freaking out, soon to be externally freaking out, when one of the men lowered down closer to her level. She was about to try to say something to the denim-clad bent knees in front of her when he simply said “**Sleep now”** and all was black again. 

\-----

“...territory in about an hour.”

“_And yer drivin' straight through?”_

The hum of a car under her came to Amy first, then shivering. She was still tied up, at wrist and ankles, but this time there was grungy car upholstery under her cheek. Her purple scrubs felt too thin for the freezing air. 

“Yes, Alpha Cunningham. Jus' passin' through on our way to Nevada.”

“_Alright, Alpha Gallagher. If I hear that you stopped anywhere...”_

“That ain't gonna happen.” 

Amy shifted to look around her. She was on the floor in the back of a van. She heard the men talking up in the front of the vehicle. Well, one of the men was on the phone. The other speaker sounding far away and gruff.

“_Alright. Then you have permission t' pass through Cunningham territory.” _

“Thank you, Alpha Cunningham.” 

“_Goodbye, Alpha Gallagher.” _

Amy was sweating. Her shivering wouldn't stop. She felt shaky and nauseous too, her stomach roiling with the movement of the van. The loud engine hum of the van was deafening in her ears and everything had a vague echoing quality to it. The upholstery under her was acrid smelling, somehow being both chemical-y sanitized and mildew-y gross to her nose. 

_Something's wrong._

She felt sick and agitated and not just from nerves. The shooting pain in her neck was throbbing now, sending searing pain both up into her head for a skull splitting headache and down her back and legs causing all her muscles to twitch and spasm. 

_Something is very, very wrong. _

“Her heart is beating like a rabbit's.”

“I know. Let's pull over so I can have her sleep again.”

_Nooooo! _She didn't need to sleep again. Amy needed help. She was so cold, so very cold and being in this van is bad. So very, very bad.

“She gonna change on us?”

“Don't know. The fever's gettin' bad though.”

She felt the van lurch as it pulled to a stop, her body swaying with the movement. _Are they going to kill me now? _

A part of Amy was afraid, visions of warehouses and white vans from various TV shows coming at her and imagining what it would be like to die by rape and torture. The part of her that was nauseous and dizzy was finding fear to be too hard to focus on. When the van door slid open she saw one of the men for the first time. An older man with a flecked gray beard and a trucker hat looked back at her. 

Again, she tried to croak out something. Anything. 

Again, he said “**sleep now”** before she could get anything out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a few shivering moments of adapting, she could finally take in details pulling a picture together of her surroundings. The sky overhead was cloudless (okay, I'm outside) and vast and wide stretching far in every direction (in the middle of nowhere). The gritty feeling she had was coming from all the sand she was lying on. Just sand, everywhere. Hard as a solid surface for laying on, but prickly pieces of it scraping into her skin. Off in the distance, she could faintly see birds of prey circling something and to her left were some cacti. Genuine, motherfucking cacti.

This time when she came to, she felt grittiness under her cheek. Her billowing hair was completely loose, some of it bunched under her face, pillowing her, the rest of it in a riot around her head. The shivering was intense and it took her a few moments to fully come back to herself. When she finally opened her eyes her first thought was how bright it was. Blazing white sunlight blared at her. Everything was gritty and sandy. Her mouth dry and chalky, her skin itchy and chafing. Her eyes were dry, causing a scratching sensation every time she blinked, trying to adjust to the shrill white light. 

Noticing how painful everything was, she thought to herself how no one dead can possibly be this uncomfortable and, from this, concluded that she must still be alive. 

After a few shivering moments of adapting, she could finally take in details pulling a picture together of her surroundings. The sky overhead was cloudless (_okay, I'm outside_) and vast and wide, stretching far in every direction (_in the middle of nowhere_). The gritty feeling she had was coming from all the sand she was lying on. Just sand, everywhere. Hard as a solid surface for laying on, but prickly pieces of it scraping into her skin. Off in the distance, she could faintly see birds of prey circling something and to her left were some cacti. Genuine, motherfucking cacti.

_Correction: I'm in the middle of a fucking desert._

The body shaking shivers kicked up a notch, distracting her from panicking immediately. Once she tuned into her body, she realized the rolling nausea and dizzying headache as well. The juncture at her neck and shoulder throbbed and all her muscles were protesting. Given all this she drew another conclusion: _I am stranded in the desert and I'm sick._

Amy just stayed laying on the ground shaking and just generally freaking out. She couldn't begin to tackle exactly what had happened to her. The last thing she clearly remembered was being at work. Yesterday? The day before? She felt like more time had passed then just a day. She also had a sense of some men? Driving? 

Clearly, she traveled pretty far from her home in Denver if there were fucking cacti around her. She must be in Arizona or New Mexico somewhere. She tested her arms and legs and found them loose. Her surprise at this was what brought back memories of being tied up. She moved her arms to cross over her chest and pulled her knees to her chest as the shivering wracked her body. She knew, in a vague way, that she should probably move. She should probably get up off the ground and start walking ….somewhere. She knew that staying was probably not the best idea, but the whole body shaking turned into wracking sobs as all the misery she was feeling crested into a wave of fear, confusion, loss and hopelessness. 

[“Jesus Christ. You're so sensitive.” Daniel was scooted towards the far end of the couch. It was early in their marriage and whenever there was a problem, the space between them was a chasm which she felt in every fiber of her being. She needed him to be closer, needed his arms around her, needed him to tell her it was okay. She felt beautiful and special when he held her and these cold moments when he was unhappy with her made her feel disgusting and guilty. 

“Don't be mad. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say...” She trailed off. She just didn't like it when he made fun of her, especially about her intelligence. She knew he liked to tease. He teased his friends and he was so funny and witty but sometimes not everyone got his jokes. She knew that bothered him and she knew he didn't like it when people tried to control him and how he expressed himself and yet she brought it up with him anyway. She was so shitty. She was so shitty and now he was mad and the distance between them was so wide and it was all her fault all because she can't take a joke. 

“You didn't mean to say what? That I'm wrong? All I was saying was that it must be nice to not have any more student loans. I wish I could have done that. It would be so much easier if I wasn't as smart as I am then I could have settled like you did. Then I wouldn't be paying through the nose for my degree. I was just complimenting how lucky you were and now you're acting like I did something wrong. What the fuck is wrong with you?” He was looking both so stricken and angry on his side of the couch. And she did that. She was shitty and wrong. 

Crying and apologizing, she crawled across the couch to him. She was just repeating how sorry she was and that she didn't mean it. She was on her knees next to him, careful not to touch, sniffing and crying, seeking out his eyes with hers as he stared impassively at the wall. She just wanted the space between them to be gone and silently willed him to look at her, just look at her, so that she can make it right. Finally, he relented and pulled her close. She went eagerly, wrapping her arms around him and nosing into his neck. He huffed in her hair as he rubbed a hand down her back in a soothing motion. 

“You know,” he said softly, “if you keep pushing people away, you'll end up dying alone.”] 

She sobbed endlessly, shaking and muttering. She didn't want to die alone. She didn't want Daniel to be right. That shitty feeling she fought so hard against roiled inside her mind leaving her bereft. She sobbed out the cruelty and unfairness of it. 

All she could do in the onslaught is hold herself, rocking back and forth until she lost all track of time. Soon the sky started to shift from hazy white to softening pink. Her face was swollen with crying and her throat was sore. She didn't feel better per se but she did feel lighter. Not the lightness and relief she typically felt from a good cry, but an emptiness that at least was better than the onslaught of emotion she started with. With a relatively clearer head, she was able to pull herself up to a sitting position. Her head swam and the rolling nausea almost made good on its threats to vomit, so she sat with her head in her hands willing herself to equalize for several moments. 

_Oh good god, is it possible to die of a headache? _ The raging pain splitting at Amy's skull seemed capable of ending a life. In her curiosity on statistics of headache-induced death, she mindlessly reached for her phone to double check the facts. The motion twinged the throbbing pain in her neck which ricocheted around her body. She had to still before resuming her search. She found her pockets to be empty which was unsurprising but showed how out of it she was that she hadn't checked before now. _I probably wouldn't get service out here anyway. _

_Okay, you are not going to just lay down and die so why don't you get your ass up and do something about this “stranded-in-a-desert” thing?_

Finally, she picked herself up and glanced around, looking for clues about an optimal direction to head. The sun was dipping low to Amy's right as she cast about for helpful landmarks. She saw rolling hills and what could be mountains off in the distance. Amy internally cheered. Living in Denver, mountains meant west. So she lurched, sock footed, to the left towards them before she registered her brain niggling at her about something. With her back to the sun she paused, trying to reason it out. 

A slow moment later she realized that the sun sets in the west, so seeing her shadow and the mountains at the same time at sunset was incorrect. She turned around, this time facing the sun, and to her dismay, saw _more_ mountains in the distance. Mountains before her and mountains behind her. The unfamiliar sight of multiple mountain ranges made her uneasy, and she felt very alien to this place. In her immediate vicinity, she only saw a yawning stretch of desert sand. Off in the distance she heard some animal yipping. And the sun was setting. 

_Law and Order SVU never covered this._

She shook her head at herself, kicking her pain into overdrive, but she started walking. Mostly, she just wanted to move away from the animal noise she heard earlier. Her aching muscles protested the movement and she more shuffled than walked. She had to hold one hand to her forehead to keep the headache pain from cracking it open with every step she took. The gurgling nausea in her belly was both fairly banked compared to when she was laying down and promising to erupt in vomiting at any moment. 

_It may be better to just ralph and get it over with_ she thought to herself before it occurred to her that upchucking her stomach contents wouldn't help her splitting headache.

So she continued on, miserably, taking one moment at a time while night fell around her. She noticed she was stumbling over what she incorrectly perceived to be flat ground and stepping comically large over rocks that weren't there. 

_The moonlight is playing games with me, the tricky bitch. _Giggling, she paused to consider the moon. She hadn't realized the sun had set so completely so the moon took her a bit by surprise. Round and full and as silvery as a unicorn's ass, the moon seemed to smile at her.

_That moon. And her secrets, _Amy thought fondly.

She started to tear up at the idea that she would never know what the moon was hiding from her. And she suddenly felt the urgent need to know. Amy stood for a moment, hand on her forehead, sand-dirtied purple scrubs and socks, glaring at the desert moon.

_I might be high,_ she realized suddenly. A_m I high? Did I get high? _

She racked her memory for when she last toked before remembering that no, she was kidnapped. Then she tried to figure out if she ate or drank something funny before remembering that she's in a desert with no food or water. Halfway through her musings, she forgot what she was doing and had to start all over again, trying to solve a puzzle with not enough pieces. She stood there for quite awhile, shivering, fever racking her body, trying to vainly make sense of her state of mind. She finally gave it up as a lost cause and continued shuffling. 

As she was shuffling forward, her thoughts kept getting dragged to the moon. She never noticed before how pretty the moon was. How bright. Her nausea had finally eased a bit, settling down into more of a cramp in her lower belly. Cramps she could deal with. The searing pain in her neck and head were a different matter so she kept refocusing on the moon to distract herself. 

_And a welcome distraction that beautiful bitch is,_ she mused. 

Suddenly, the cramping escalated, joining the searing pain in Amy's neck and head. It felt like one uniform fiery hot pain found three different points to anchor itself into her, then radiate outward through her limbs and connecting in her torso. The highway network of searing hot pain traipsed through her muscles, burning her up from inside out. 

The sudden agony coursing through her body forced Amy, screaming, down to her knees. Her skin felt like it was ripping from inside out. It felt like her organs had decided to up and start moving around. She looked down at her belly to see a wave rolling under her skin large enough to traverse the width of her body. Then her bones started breaking. Spontaneously. She heard the rending cracking sounds as they happened in conjunction to the moments of shattering pain in her arms, legs and ribs. Even her spine seemed to snap and crack violently. 

Amy was on her side, laying on the desert floor, screaming and consumed by agony. She was helpless as her body was wreaking havoc on itself. The moon, shining brightly, looked on passively. Then, Amy's internal spasms started to break outward. The inside of her face propelled forward, lengthening the area of her nose and mouth. Canines elongated out of her gums into fangs. Her ears lengthened and pointed, reaching away from her. 

Her limbs shrank upwards and in, breaking to bend in at a wrong angle in her joints. Her spine elongated out past her buttocks, the blood and viscera covered vertebrate bones glinting white in the moonlight. Fingernails stretched painfully out of their nail beds, darkening and lengthening into claws. Her screams that had started out as distinctly human, became more animal as her vocal cords shortened and thickened. 

Her dirtied purple scrubs, bloodied and rent from the violence of the body it contained, lay in tatters in the sand. 

Amy felt like her body was turning itself inside out, the agony whiting out all sense of herself. In that moment she had no memories, no knowledge and no logical awareness of what was happening. She was simply the sound of a scream personified. She had even transcended registering the sensation as feelings. Her experience was only flaming, white hot screaming. 

Her skin started to grow and stretch. Newly formed skin, angry and red, spread over the parts of her where bones were jutting out. The part of her spine that dangled behind her suddenly became sheathed in tissue. The skin spread from where her butt cheeks met her back onto a new dangling appendage. 

The screaming sensation continued without end while simultaneously changing in tenor and sensation. Parts of her growing and reshaping. Other parts of her were breaking and contracting. Different phases of whatever was happening to her had different qualities of pain. First, searing hot pain, followed after cracking and breaking and then the ripping sensation of skin stretching where it shouldn't go. 

Then the fur happened. 

As if a signal had been set, all the pores in her body started to produce fur follicles all at once. Her arms, legs, back, and belly all sprouted fur in the same moment. Even her face, which had been stretched outward resembling more of a snout became blanketed in fur in varying shades of russet and brown. The follicles on her skull seemed to pull in her long brown locks before jetting out the fur on her scalp. The new appendage jutting out from behind her sprouted longer strands of brown and black follicles. 

Under the bright moon, all parts of her body were working in concert to reshape and mold into something else. The process slowed as the individual pieces reset to fit the larger whole until finally the grotesque transformation finalized into a finished product. The yowling that had been echoing throughout that patch of desert ended abruptly. 

The creature on the desert floor had no name. It had no memory. It came to sudden existence on the desert floor with no knowledge of anything. Cautiously, it leaned down to sniff at some bloody fabric under its paws. Nosing around, it explored its surroundings. It had no context for what was happening but adapted quickly. It sniffed the dry wind noting the presence of others in its vicinity. Rising on all fours the coyote loped off in that direction, accepting the challenge. 

All the while the full moon rested overhead, a passive observer. 


	4. Cael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else has had similar experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a home invasion.

**-5 Years Earlier-**

He was circling his enemy again, rifle drawn. From his vantage point, he should have easily clipped his target by now. The bastard kept ducking behind abandoned crates, keeping his head out of Cael's line of sight. He checked his weapons again, looking for something else that could help him get his prey. His serrated knife is useless at this distance and the other guns he had on him had worse capabilities than his rifle's scope. Cael sighed and bent back to his task, circling around to the other side. Perhaps he can kill him from that angle. 

“Where the hell are you?!” Seth's shout startled Cael for a moment then Cael laughed at his friend's frustration over the head set.

“I got you in my sights,dude. Just waiting for my moment.” Cael grabbed a Dorito from the bag and maneuvered his avatar on the screen while crunching away. He was sitting in his boxers and a sleep shirt, cross legged on the floor in front of his TV. He had a trusty bag of Doritos on one side and a bottle of Dr. Pepper on the other. He swiped his hair out of his eyes, his dark curly hair was getting too long again. Cael eventually made it to the other side of the arena, finally finding a spot behind Seth's player. He paused for a moment just to mess with Seth.

“Just finding the right momennnnnt” he drawled, stretching out the last syllable, letting Seth know he should be dead already. Seth cursed and his player immediately ducked back to the left but it was too late. Cael hit the buttons on his controller in rapid succession and watched the figure on the screen tumble and the background bled red. “Booyeah! Sucka!!”

Cael and Seth's weekly Call of Duty bouts were an opportunity for them to take turns killing each other in the virtual world (or team up to kill others) as well as to catch up. Having moved to two different states after college should have ended their friendship but thank god for Xbox live. It was almost like they were in each other's dorms again while they were playing.

“You jerk! I thought you were in the lower level and I was going to get you with a grenade!” Cael laughed at his friend again. They were waiting on a loading screen now so he took a chance to down some more Doritos. 

“When are you coming out here again?” Cael crunched out. Seth had come out to Wyoming to visit Cael last year and he'd been nagging Seth to come out again since then. 

“Dude, Wyoming is boring. You come out to Chicago.”

“I came out to Chicago twice now. You come out here.”

“You've come to Chicago twice 'cuz Wyoming is boring,” Seth was crunching around his words too. He preferred Cheetos over Doritos and Cael could almost smell his Cheeto breath over the line. 

“You're such a jerk, dude.” Cale let go of the visiting idea while they set up the next round on screen.

A few hours later, Cael was getting ready for bed, far later than he should have considering he has work the next morning. He made the rounds of his apartment, shutting off lights and locking the front door. The noise in his neighborhood was never very loud, so when there was a sudden crash of garbage cans he went to the window to see where it came from. From his third story window all he could see was an empty intersection but he peered out all the same, trying to see if there was a trouble-making raccoon loose on his street. 

He managed to get so engrossed, looking for a raccoon, that he missed the sound of steps in the hallway outside his door. He didn't realize anything was amiss until his front door was knocked in. Jumping away from the window, he saw three hooded men enter his apartment. 

“What the hell? Get out of here!” He turned to run into his bedroom but one of the men grabbed him and pulled him into the middle of the living room. The one who had grabbed him kept a firm hold on him but one of the other men came to his other side to help restrain Cael. The surprise of suddenly having to run from home invaders seemed to have shocked his system because it wasn't until the third man came closer to him with intent that he actually became afraid. 

“What are you doing?! Get away from me!” Cael threw his whole body into the struggle as Man #3 reached towards the collar of Cael's shirt. The two men holding his arms didn't even budge. Now, Cael wasn't exactly a free-weights jock, but he was no slouch at the gym. His shoulders were broad and his biceps did have some definition, so the lack of impact was confusing. He should have at least made those two guys work for it. Being so thoroughly restrained caused his fear to double in on itself. He threw his body around again, just to try to get a reaction, but it was like being restrained by brick walls. 

The third man in front of him had a firm grip on the collar of his now ripped shirt. With his other hand, he lifted the mask on his face up to his nose, revealing his mouth and chin. Or what should have been a mouth and chin. Instead, Cael could only identify what appeared to be a flat muzzle. The lips were thickened and inhumanly dark. The teeth were long and pointed, with viciously long incisors jutting out from the top lip and reaching past the bottom lip. And there was so much hair lining the bottom of the face. And not like a beard. More like the tufts of a shaggy dog. This comparison came to Cael at the same time that he smelled the man's odor which was similar enough to dog-breath that Cael actually experienced a sense of vertigo from trying to make reason out of what his senses were telling him. 

“What the fuck?! Let me go!” The man-dog-person in from of him opened his mouth wide on a snarl then jumped forward, closed his jaw at the juncture of Cael's neck and shoulder and bit into the flesh in a flash of searing pain. The roaring noise in Cael's ears drowned out the sounds of his screams. His whole body lit up in agonizing pain, radiating downward through his limbs like a lightning bolt. 

The man in front of him stepped back, blood dripping from his mouth and Cael felt an answering flood of blood pour from the red hot epicenter of pain in his neck. The man swiped an arm across his horrifically distorted mouth to clear out some of the mess. It was then that Cael looked at the eyes of the man-dog person. Though the top half of his face was still covered by mask, his eyes glittered a starling light blue from behind the eye holes. They were bright enough to seem out of place from the rest of the hideously disfigured face. With a gasp of recognition Cael cried out.

“Anthony Gallagher!?” 

The other men gripped his arms tighter and the man-dog person in front of him shrugged and took off his mask in a “what are you going to do?” gesture. 

Anthony Gallagher was a well-known asshole in town and seeing him here, among this violence was almost as disorienting to Cael as the rest of what was happening. The room started to distort and bend but Anthony's grotesque mouth, drooling pink was startling in its clarity in Cael's field of vision. The roaring in his ears crested and his legs suddenly felt weak, then everything went dark.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occasionally snuffing quietly at the dirt, ears pricked forward to hear below the surface of the sand, the coyote stood tense, poised for attack. There were mice scurrying under the ground, and he could hear them scuttling about. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some quick movement so he pivoted in that direction and rose on his back legs to pounce. Pushing all his weight forward he caught one of the mice in his paws and quickly lunged to snatch it up in his mouth. There was some crunching as he cracked the bones with his molars and then swallowed the whole thing down. After licking his snout clean he shifted focus back to the mice sounds below the surface to pounce again.

**-Present Day-**

Snuffing quietly at the dirt, ears pricked forward to hear below the surface of the sand, the coyote stood tense, poised for attack. There were mice scurrying under the ground, and he could hear them scuttling about. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some quick movement so he pivoted in that direction and rose on his back legs to pounce. Pushing all his weight forward he caught sight of one of the mice and quickly lunged to snatch it up in his mouth. There was some crunching as he cracked the bones with his molars and then swallowed the whole thing down. After licking his snout clean he shifted focus back to the mice sounds below the surface to pounce again.

He kept at the mousing for a bit until he felt sufficiently full. He snuffed around to see if there was anything else noteworthy in the area then headed out. His days were mostly spent seeking out food or water, napping then moving on. He had a general area that he stuck to. The smells were familiar and the routes he took the most started to reflect his own scent back to him causing a comfy feedback loop in which he established a routine. 

In the beginning, he had come across some other predators. They smelled different from him and had clearly marked the territory as their own. A scrabble for dominance did not end very well for him but he was able to get himself out of the area before too much harm was caused. Since then, he steered clear of areas that smelled too strongly of other predators. It took traversing some mountain areas which he liked less than the flat plains. But he was able to find an area that wasn't taken that suited his needs. 

All in all, he followed a bit of a rhythm. He slept when it was too hot. Prowled when it was cooler. He ate whatever he felt like when he came across it, even going so far as to eat some grasshoppers he found once. 

Part of his rhythm was feeling the full moon. Every time the moon became full and bright, he'd feel an itchiness under his fur. There was tension in his muscles and an energy to go somewhere, like when he was mid-hunt or mid-fight. But he could never find a direction for his body to go. There were no smells, sights or sounds that gave clues for what to do with this tension. During a fight, the tension would be funneled towards his opponent. He'd be able to use the energy as force against an attack, or he'd be able to dodge particularly fast. Without a fight though, he was just agitated and restless. Four times this had happened. Four times the full moon caused so much uneasiness that he ended up pacing the perimeter of his territory looking for something to fight with. 

He currently felt the full moon below his skin. Nightfall was still a ways off, but the agitation was already growing. He had already eaten so there was no need to hunt anymore. Still, he set off at a trot. There was less predatory stink to the east, so he went that way to see what lay beyond his area. 

After he covered a few miles, the smells of other animals started to thin. Others didn't travel this way often and given the far off din he was hearing, he understood why. It was … uncomfortable. The sounds were still far away but they were steady and he could tell, even at this range, that they were loud. Night had fallen so the moon was still scraping at him so he ventured forward. 

The wind was gently moving from the east towards the coyote. On a breeze, the sandy hot smell of the desert was overpowered by something stinky that he hadn't experienced since he first came to the desert. It was a complicated scent. Not carcass, but something else that was lifeless and rotting. He hesitantly followed it forward. 

He eventually came towards town life. The smell of exhaust clogged his nose and the traffic noises caused him to flatten his ears in a constant wince. He was still on the outskirts, the ramshackle houses of desert dwellers cropping up here and there as one moved closer towards humanity. 

The coyote paced back and forth a football field length away from one such house. He sniffed the border between here and there, trying to make sense of the strange, square rock he was seeing. It didn't smell like a rock, but it loomed like some of the bigger ones he'd seen. There was sub-surface noise coming from within, but these weren't mice skittering along their below-earth pathways. These loud predators were big. And they were clanging and yowling unfamiliarly. 

The coyote sat and watched, for once being distracted from the weight of the moon. There were too many of them to try to hunt one. And the land was soaked in their habitation smells, marking it clearly as their area. Their strange yowls rang out through the desert startling anything passing by, including the coyote who had been listening to it for awhile. But they were so strange to him that he studied them for a bit anyway. 

“Well, fuck me! I work and I work all day...!”

“What in the hell you talkin' about? You been on your ass since I got home!”

“I been watching the game! You mean to tell me...”

The coyote craned its ears forward as a door slammed open and a young girl came stomping out. She was carrying a trash bag, and the wafting aroma of garbage made its way to the coyote, causing it to both salivate and wrinkle its nose at once. The fighting inside the house continued as the girl dumped the bag into the can on the side of the house. She stomped into the unfenced yard, not noticing the coyote in the distance. She swiped at her tear streaked face. 

“Are you kidding me?! You act like you do so much for this family...”

“I _do_ do so much for this family! I pay the 'lectric! I pay the Netflix!”

“The Netflix!? Your mom pays the Netflix, you cheap son of …”

Between the clattering inside the house, the yelling and the stench of human civilization, something was prickling at the coyote. It was not dissimilar to the moon pull, in that it was a feeling with no cues or outlet, but entirely different in that it was itching at the coyote to see something. To think something. 

The wafting wind was still pulling the garbage scent to the coyote but now the girl's sobs had picked up so the salty tang of tears came to the coyote as well. 

[Sobbing, Amy ran from Daniel through the living room of their town home, the tears tracing a salty trail past her nose. 

“Don't you run from me!” The shouts rang in her ears. His booming holler chased her into the bedroom. She slammed the door behind her and pressed her body against it to brace against the push from him on the other side. The door shuddered forward lifting her whole body back a step before she could regroup and throw herself against it again. “Don't you fucking dare run from me!!”]

The coyote startled from its place and even jumped back a step. Nothing was nearby yet he shook with vigilance and fear. His mind was seeing something his senses didn't register.

The frightened yip he made in response brought the girl's attention to him. Her crying interrupted, she paused to watch the coyote as it startled into jumping a few times, as though being stung by bees. 

[Amy was rocking on her side on the ground, hot desert sand beneath her. Her face was hot and sore from the sobbing she had been doing for god knows how long. She couldn't stop the feverish shivering in her body and her dirty, purple scrubs were poor comfort.]

The coyote had no context for what it was perceiving. The past while had been a simplistic existence for the creature. Its mind was only concerned with the goal of meeting its own animal needs and the information provided by its senses. The sudden onslaught of memories and the growing awareness that it was forgetting something was overwhelming to the poor animal's brain and it took off running in response. 

The fight or flight chemicals that had flooded the coyote's system were given free reign in a burst of pumping legs back towards the desert as though it was being chased. Overhead, the moon loomed and the previous moon's pull of agitation under the coyote's skin came back full force. 

[Amy was stumbling along in the desert. Her fevered mind gave her dire situation a surreal quality that caused her to giggle to herself about how playful the moon could be. She felt how beautiful and secretive the moon was. She felt it in her bones. Then she felt her bones snap and break as her body rent itself apart.]

The coyote did not get far back into the desert before its mind became flooded with the memory of the transformation. The remembered pain and terror of that night. The now identifiable pull of the moon tugged at its muscles and sent the coyote into a spastic fit. The human mind clawing its way back to the surface caused violent visceral movement in the creature. 

[Amy set up to take a selfie in her crappy basement apartment. She had no dishes, running hot water or toilet paper yet. Though she did find corn on the cob holders and her first ipod. So, the amount of crap she needed but didn't have was fairly well balanced by the amount of crap she had but didn't need. But everything that was there was hers. She had already de-Danieled her social media accounts (leaving her friendlist woefully short) and she had de-Danieled her bank account (leaving her woefully broke). Nesting in this moldy dump was the first step to de-Danieling the rest of her life. She smiled at the front-facing camera in a hopeful grin that belied the bags under her eyes and the weight loss making her look gaunt. “Here's to me.”]

In the desert the coyote yipped. 

Amy suddenly remembered! She remembered who she was and what being human meant. She was Amy Kemp! She was a person! 

The sudden onslaught of this information in her mind was such a revelation. She was being flooded with memories and information, all of it competing with each other for relevance. The Pythagorean theorem and her ATM pin were vying for space as much as the awareness that she had been missing from work for months and that her parents were probably freaking out. While her human mind came hurtling back to her, the body of the coyote was trembling and flooding with adrenaline. 

The canine form that her mind was trapped in was awkward to move around in and small. She felt far too close to the ground and the limbs refused to work properly. She stumbled around a few steps before giving it up and just laid there panting, taking in what was happening. 

Looking through the eyes of a coyote was a revelation in and of itself. The desert at night reflected back at her brightly in a way that shouldn't have been possible. She saw clearly as though it were daylight, though the hues were more silvered and the details were fuzzy. She also saw much further than should be possible 

She could also hear the desert teeming with life around her. There was an anthill off to the right of her and the padding of hundreds of little ant feet hummed nearby as well as the flit of a bird's wing some 50 yards away or so. Her ears even twitched of their own accord towards the sounds as she focused on them bringing far away sounds into sharp focus. A bit like selectively turning up the volume towards something. Sights and sounds were both amplified in the animal's senses and experiencing them was so intense to her. 

But all of that paled in comparison to the smells. 

Good god the smells. 

Breathing in through the nose was like a spiritual awakening, and she took several inhales just to experience it again and again. Everything around her was teeming with life and her nose could catalog all of it. The moist dirt smell that lay several feet below the dry, sandy surface. The dirty feather smell of the aforementioned bird above her as well as the night wind cold smell of the air the bird was flying in as compared to the dusty dry air at ground level. Every smell within several dozen yards was amplified as though it were right under her nose, the layers and complexity being easily identifiable and her brain intrinsically made sense of all of it without any of it being overwhelming. She never knew the world could be so... smelly. 

No, that wasn't right. She found words to be limiting as her thoughts attempted to make sense of what she was experiencing. No, the world was noisy. In a smelling-kind of way. 

_Noise-smelling? Smell-noise? _she thought to herself. Then it came to her. _A cacophony of odors. _

And then there was the pull. She remembered the pull of the moon from that night. It was here too. In her furry form, this pull felt less like her body was attacking itself, and more like something wanted to escape outside of her. She felt the need to run or fight spreading down into her muscles. The coyote was snarling and growling in preparation for … something, without any say so from her. 

She also remembered the endless days in the desert. Napping in the shade of a large rock, chasing a bunny across the plains and lapping up water from a puddle with a canine mouth. She remembered being lost in the coyote's body and not knowing her humanity. The coyote whose body she was in was working itself up to some kind of battle while she was battling with her own mind. 

_Well, that's not okay._

She had no idea what would happen, but losing herself to spend the rest of her days licking her own ass in some god forsaken desert was not an option. Clearly, she was going to need to fight back. 

It was scary and awful to contemplate, and she feared replicating the same experience as the first time this happened. But if the moon did this to her then she'd have to let the moon undo it. 

So, she sought that moon pull inside her. Amy focused on that restless energy of needing to burst out of her own skin. She noticed in awe as her body shifted again. The coyote body seemed to fold itself outward and outward, furry limbs lengthening and torso expanding. This time, it was less a violent rending of the material present and more of an unfolding to bring forward new material. Like a blooming flower. Her snout folded into her face, her tail tucked up and in and her ears shifted down and inward. Even her fur seemed to fold down and away. Like it was being tucked away for safekeeping. 

With one last anticlimactic sigh, the whole process finally ended with Amy laying panting on the ground, exhausted and bone weary but human. 

Well, mostly. 

She was human looking anyway. 

_I don't think turning into a coyote is part of the human package. _

Amy felt a brief flare of panic that crescendoed so suddenly and violently she had to curl onto her side and breathe a bit just to settle herself again. The overwhelming fear that she was not entirely human seemed somehow even scarier and bigger to her now than when she was literally sniffing the ground with the snout of a coyote. 

In an ironic replication of that moment, Amy took a few deep whiffs of the sand just below her face. It smelled of sand. Flat, one-dimensional sand. It was rather quiet, in a smelling-kind of way. The deep breaths and the very human perception she had of the smells soothed her. 

She sighed and sat up. She looked down at herself and poked experimentally. In her pathetic human eyes, it was too dark to see much but her belly button was there along with the mounds of her breasts. The dog bite scar on her forearm she earned in the fourth grade was still there along with the smattering of moles and freckles she'd always had. All her toes wiggled on command and her skin registered sensation as she ran fingers along various surfaces to test how well her humanness worked. She sighed in relief and flopped back onto the ground. 

She realized then that she had been crying as she was cataloging. Her tears were flowing freely and were punctuated by the occasional hiccup. She didn't know what was happening to her, but the relief she felt at being fully human again for now was a wave crashing on the shores of her psyche. She lay there awash in feeling. The moon overhead, rested with her. 

They stayed like that for some time. The moon gently moved on its path across the sky and Amy followed it with her eyes, taking gradually calmer breaths until her crying ceased. She continued to take soothing breaths in that space as she watched the moon make its trek. Just breathing and feeling the night breeze across her skin, Amy felt strangely content. 

She knew everything about her and her life was fucked beyond all reason. She knew that even making sense of her predicament was enough to cause a meltdown. But in that moment, she knew calm. In that moment, when she was just sitting with the moon, Amy was at peace. 

After a time, she sat up to consider her next move. She looked around her. 

Clearly, she needed to get out of whatever magic desert this was before she turned into something weirder. With the coyote memories at hand, she knew her best bet was back the way she came, towards where the humans live. 

_Other humans. Where the other humans live, _she corrected mentally.

She tentatively got to her feet and tested out her limbs from a standing position. Not quite as awkward to her as the coyote limbs, and much improved from her shuffling fevered state, but she still wobbled a bit for a few steps, swaying too far one way or another as she reacquainted herself with the use of her legs. 

_You're stumbling a bit like Bambi, _she thought to herself. Then she giggled at the idea of someone who had just transformed from a coyote being like a deer. _God, life is so freaking weird sometimes. _

She noted that she was barefoot when the soles of her feet connected with the harsh grains of sand. Looking down she realized she was naked. In her post transformation body sweep, she was so intent on finding clues she was still human, and so emotional in her joy at finding them, that she failed to make some basic human deductions about what she was seeing. But she was, in fact, quite nude. Which meant that finding help among the humans was going to be a challenge. 

_But it had better be soon, _she thought to herself, as she realized that she was hungry. Not just hungry, but on her way to being starving soon. It had been some time since the mice earlier that afternoon.

With her legs firmly under her, Amy set off back towards the houses she saw earlier. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who's there?! What do you want?!” The man had stringy chin length hair, boxers and an undershirt. Light flooded out from behind him causing Amy to need to blink her eyes to adjust. He was wielding a golf club and scanned the surroundings outside of his home, glancing left and right, until his eyes fell on Amy. He took a step back in surprise and lowered his golf club arm.
> 
> Amy's crossed legs were hiding her lower half and her awkwardly crossed arms were trying to hide her upper half. The limitations of her limbs left her with waving her right hand from her vantage point, motion limited to below the wrist. “Umm, hi. I'm in a bit of pickle, and need some assistance.”

The way back to the houses took longer on two legs than it did on four. She limped for most of it, given how harsh the desert floor is to bare, human feet. She also spent much of her time being lost. The path towards road noises seemed much less clear with her pathetic human hearing. In comparison to the amazing coyote hearing, Amy felt practically deaf. She kept straining to hear better and getting frustrated when it didn't work. She also couldn't turn her ears at all. 

_Okay, you can add that to the list of shit to drink about when you get back to civilization_ she griped to herself. She entertained herself on the long walk by imagining what she was going to do once she got there. A bath and dinner ranked pretty high on the list. She knew she'd have to take steps to get back into the life she was taken away from which necessitated calling her parents or her boss. In her post-de-Danieled days, she didn't have many contacts she was responsible to, outside those two. 

She spent some time struggling with the loneliness of this realization. 

_Shouldn't I have friends? Or other people I need to contact? Like, maybe … book club people? _She mentally added joining a book club to her list. Calling her parents, or even 911, ranked surprisingly low, and she was debating if she should call them before or after her much anticipated drinking binge. 

While she was debating the merits of tequila or rum, she finally came in sight of some houses. These seemed more ramshackle than her coyote memories offered from earlier. The satellite dish on the roof sat over a busted rain gutter. The paneling was peeling off the single wide and there was a pile of tires in one corner of the dirt pile of a yard. 

As odd as her whole night had been, crouched behind a sage bush, contemplating this house, was the first time all night Amy actually felt unsafe. The fact that she was completely naked had been in the background noise of her awareness for the past few hours but it came screaming into the forefront of her mind. She wasn't quite ready to fully process how messy being back among people was going to be, but this was evidently going to be the start. 

[Amy had spent the better part of an hour putting together her naughty ensemble and she knew that slouching and hand wringing was ruining the sexy effect she was going for. She tried to ease back onto the couch cushions. She plastered on a bright smile when she heard Daniel's truck pull into the driveway. It was later than his usual arrival time, and she hoped he wasn't too cranky from working long. Her belly swooped with fear when his stumbling steps resulted in him slamming the front door open and him nearly falling into the house. Even from across the living room she could smell the beer and whiskey on him. 

_Oh, he wasn't working late, _she thought to herself as she inched herself off the couch. Daniel was worse when he was drunk so Amy tried to surreptitiously remove herself from the room while he swore at the door. 

“What the fuck you wearing?!” Her sidling out of the room was interrupted and her whole body clenched in fear.]

Amy's body clenched in remembered fear from behind the sage bush. The past fear from her memory seemed to echo her current fear and this double fear seemed to gear up to debilitating levels that she could not afford right at that moment. She tried to take a deep breath but being aware of her fear seemed to only heighten it. She looked around her at the other houses within her line of sight, weighing the pros and cons of trying some of those out over the one in front of her. Eventually, her sore feet decided for her. Staying at a crouch, Amy crept closer to the house. She ended up flush against the wall next to the door. She was trying to stifle her heavy breathing and her heart was pounding out of her chest. She was sure that someone inside would have heard her by now. 

_Am I trying to be quiet? Shouldn't I be knocking? _Amy considered her options. She could knock, but she guessed the time to be around midnight, given how long ago the sun set and how dark and quiet the little trailer was. If someone was in there, they were likely asleep. Yet, it was too early in the night to just chill here until a more reasonable hour. 

She looked around her surroundings in one more ditch effort to see another option, any other option. The horizon of the desert was her only view. Her gaze went upwards but the moon was absent, having moved on to other parts of the world by now. She sighed to herself. Then she squeezed her eyes closed as she reached out her arm and quickly thumped her fist against the plywood three times. 

Inside the trailer came a muffled shout and the sound of thumping as the inhabitant started fumbling about. Lights inside the trailer turned on as the inhabitant made their way towards the door, causing light to spill across the yard. She crouch-crawled her way a little ways away from the door behind an upturned lawn chair. She covered herself the best she could and when the door swung open she still winced in humiliation. 

“Who's there?! Whaddaya want?!” The man had stringy chin length hair, boxers and a stained undershirt. Light flooded out from behind him causing Amy to need to blink her eyes to adjust. He was wielding a golf club and scanned the surroundings outside of his home, glancing left and right, until his eyes fell on Amy. Taking a step back in surprise, he lowered his golf club arm. 

Amy's crossed legs were hiding her lower half and her awkwardly crossed arms were trying to hide her upper half. The limitations of her limbs left her with waving her right hand from her vantage point, motion limited to below the wrist. “Umm, hi. I'm in a bit of a pickle, and need some assistance.”

A raised eyebrow was the only response from the man for a long moment. Amy's nervousness ratcheted up and her eyes darted around, looking for the nearest cover she could run to. A clearing of a throat brought her attention back to the man in the trailer. 

“Uh, yeah, I can see that. I'll just, ahem,” another throat clearing “I'll just grab ya, yeah...” he trailed off as he disappeared back into the house. He came back quickly with a bath towel

“I'm just gonna... uh...” he leaned to his side to better drape the towel within reaching distance of her from behind the protection of the lawn chair. 

With her awkward waving hand she was able to grab it from him. Once she securely had it he stepped back. The two stayed there for a moment, looking at each other in expectation. Him waiting for her to wrap the towel around her, her waiting for him to turn away so she could just do that. She broke eye contact first, looking at the towel in her hand. Finally, he cleared his throat (again) and turned away to afford her some privacy. 

With a too-small bath towel securely around her, (_Why the heck are these always just a bit too small!?! _she wondered angrily) she finally stepped up and out, away from the lawn chair. The man turned as she approached. Up close, she could see he was in his late thirties and his five o'clock shadow seemed to have migrated into stubble territory. Eyes raked over her and she felt, if it were possible, more naked than before. “Umm, I'm s-sorry for, you know, waking you up and ...” she stammered out in her embarrassment. 

“No, it's very alright” he said, looking her up and down. “I'm Trey.” He offered a hand out for her to shake. 

She clasped the towel into one hand and allowed her other to be shaken, “I'm Amy.” 

The hand shaking upset the delicate balance that kept her clothed resulting in her towel dropping lower on her chest than she wanted. Given the way his eyes tracked the movement, Trey was fine with it. Amy dropped his hand and reshifted the towel. 

“Listen, I've had quite a day. Is it possible to trouble you for the use of a phone?” Trey's eyes snapped back to her face. At the mention of a phone, his hands reached where his pockets would be had he been wearing pants. As it were, they merely patted the sides of his boxers a few times before he realized. 

“Uh, we don't get much service out here,” he stated apologetically while gesturing for her to follow him inside the trailer. She stepped up hesitantly, every fiber inside her screaming not to do so. The inside of the trailer surprised her. Unlike the grungy, oversized closet that movies had taught her to expect from a trailer, instead it was like a small house, turned lengthwise. Staying near the door, Amy could make out a kitchen to her right, a living room in front of her and beyond that to the left was the bedroom that Trey was in, rummaging around in some blankets on the floor. The appliances, carpet and furniture all seemed to be more than a few years' old and the whole place was cluttered with old pizza boxes and empty beer cans. 

Amy wondered idly what the coyote would be able to smell here that she couldn't. Then she shuddered at the idea. 

“Right! Here it is.” Trey came back, waving a phone valiantly in his hand. 

“Oh thank you. It means so much to me.” Keeping her towel firmly in place, Amy received the phone without too much disturbance to her coverage.

“Yeah, like I said, it don't get much service out here.” He brushed his hair out of his face and leaned toward her. She took a step back, gaze fixed on the phone. It occurred to her that reporting her crime may get weird for her. She had a block of time unaccounted for in the desert after her kidnappers dumped her. 

Checking the date on the phone to see how long that block of time was nearly enough to knock her to the ground again. 

_October 16th?!?!_

Amy racked her brain. It couldn't possibly be October. 

Giving a dainty fake laugh to hide her panic, Amy tried to double check the date with Trey. “Oh gosh, it's closer to Halloween than I thought it was.”

Trey leaned closer to her again at this, holding her gaze. “Yeah, it's what? Two weeks a away?” He chuckled, “I need to get my costume.”

Amy stepped back again, edging into the kitchen, nerves jangling. She didn't even know how to process that information. _It's supposed to be June! Was it June? Yes! It was June 5th? 6Th? Holy crap! I've been gone... _she paused to do the math, counting it over a few times to make sure she had it right, _four months?! I've been in the desert for four months!_

She had read about fainting couches. Women swooned so often in olden times that special tonics, salts and even furniture had to be created to handle the side effects of the feminine mind finding the world to be too much to handle. She had assumed that fainting wasn't actually a thing. Until now at least. Her vision swam, her heart was pounding out of her chest and a cement block in her lungs kept her from being able to breathe. She heard a faraway voice through the ringing in her ears telling her it was okay.

_No! It's not okay! It's not okay!_

“Yes, it is, just breathe, Amy. Yeah, just breathe. Whatever happened earlier you're okay now.” Amy took some ragged breaths. The panic crested and flowed through her. She vaguely registered arms around her as she fought to breathe. She swam in a lightheaded feeling and fought to stay in her body. She focused on her breath. In-two-three, out-two-three-four. For several breaths she just fixated on successfully breathing. Finally, after an incalculable amount of time, the dark that was clouding her vision slowly started to recede. 

When she was able to come back to herself, she found herself sitting on the beige and stained couch, her bare toes curled into the carpet . Trey was shushing her, spouting something about being safe with him. A hand was sliding up and down her bare back where her towel had slid down in repetitive motions. It was oddly comforting in a hair raising kind of way. 

In the absence of the receding panic, Amy was left exhausted and bereft. She leaned into the creeping hand, soothing up and down her back. She was shaky with hunger and emotionally overwhelmed with what to do about the whole turning-into-a-wild-coyote-and-living-in-the-magic-desert-for-four-months thing. 

“You're okay here, you know. Don't know what a good girl like you went through out there, but you don't have to worry now.” Trey had leaned so far into her space he was whispering the words directly into her ear. Were she any less tired, she would have shrugged him off by now. Her cringe response to him seemed to have been muted. She did notice the phone still in her now shaking hand. 

“Yeah. Thanks for that.” She cleared her throat. “I just think I should call someone.” 

She hid her moving away from him by turning to face him, scooting a bit on the couch to make for some space. 

“Yeah, sure.” Trey stood up from the couch. The couch sagged in his absence and her back suddenly felt cold but she felt violently relieved at the step he took away. She took a deeper breath feeling miles better just from the space being offered. “I'll just uh... you need some water? Or something?”

She looked up at Trey. He had his hand on the back of his neck in a nervous gesture and he was waving vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. 

She nodded. “Uh, yeah. I actually haven't eaten. In like, a while.” She smiled hopefully at him.

He flashed her a confident smile and even made finger guns at her. “Food. Coming right up. Trey to the rescue.” 

He, for lack of a better word, flounced into the kitchen. The kitchen opened into the living room through a wide archway so he wasn't actually in a different room. The kitchen sounds of cabinets opening and closing left her with an acute awareness of Trey, but at least she had some breathing space from him. 

She opened the phone again. She pulled open the calling app and tried to remember a phone number that would help. 

_Guess I can skip calling work. If I've been gone this long, chances are I've already been fired. _So no call to the boss then. At least, not yet. 

Her parents' numbers changed when they made the leap from a home phone to cell phones with everyone else. And, like everyone else, she didn't have any new numbers memorized. In order to call them, she'd need to google their numbers. Or use social media to message them. And their experience with messaging apps left her with doubts about the success of that. 

Trey slammed the refrigerator particularly hard bringing her awareness to her current situation that any contact with her parents tonight could not help her solve. She weighed the pros and cons of calling 911 given the weird gap she has between her kidnapping and now. 

_Yeah, I'm fairly certain “Yes, Officer, I was trapped in the body of a wild coyote for FOUR months” is just gonna go over well. _

She shrugged and decided to just cross that crazy bridge when she got to it. Pulling up the phone app she punched in 911. She waited while the call tried to connect.

Trey came back in with chicken wings coated in thick barbecue sauce that were obviously leftover take-out, some square slices of orange cheese and three Oreos. He placed the plate on the coffee table with a “ta-da” wave of his hands. She still waited. 

He came around the table and sat too close by her side again. This time, when his hand came onto her back, she shied away. Scooting away showed her how much the towel was more of a covering suggestion now rather than actual covering. She stood briefly, readjusted the towel and then sat back down. The call was still trying to connect. 

“Yeah, we don't get great service out here,” Trey shrugged and leaned back onto his side of the couch, seemingly unperturbed by her boundary setting. 

“Why don't you switch carriers or something? Not having service at your house, that's...” She wanted to say stupid but then thought better of it. “That must be annoying.”

Trey shrugged again. “It's the desert. We only got the one carrier in town and the service don't reach so good out here. Maybe if we was in Fillmore,” he paused to consider here, then shook his head. “Nah, my cousin moved out there and he has the same service carrier, so it's the same out there too.”

The call was still trying to connect. “What town is this?” Amy asked. 

"Oh, Meadow,” Trey said as though it were self-evident. Amy waited a moment for clarification that never came. The call on the phone timed out from not successfully connecting. She hit redial. 

“Okay. What is Meadow near?” Amy asked. 

“Well, it's right near Fillmore. More people know that town. They come out for Fishlake. We just swimming in tourists in the summer,” Trey rattled off.

Amy still didn't recognize any of it. The call was still trying to connect. “Okay, what other big cities are you near?” 

Trey smiled at her as though she wasn't in on the joke yet. “You mean Provo and Salt Lake? They're like two hours away.” His face suddenly shifted from concealed humor to concern. “Where you from? You far from home?”

Amy startled, “Salt Lake? You mean Salt Lake City?”

Trey nodded and leaned back towards her as though to reach out and touch her but his arms aborted the effort and he instead shrugged on himself. “Yeah, that's the one. It's a bit a-ways though. You from far from here?”

The call still hadn't connected yet. The food was taunting her from the coffee table and Amy was apparently in Utah. 

_I'm in Utah!? They dumped me in Utah?!? _

_Those mother fuckers dumped me in fucking Utah!_

She closed the calling app and gave up on the phone in favor of food. Grabbing the plate and pulling it into her lap, she dug into the wings. The taste of honey barbecue bloomed across her tongue and she moaned in relief. The chicken tore from the bone in her teeth and her stomach rumbled in joy. She noticed distantly that Trey gave in to sidling closer and was rubbing her back again. She halfheartedly tried to shrug off his intentions but so much of her focus was on the food that his attentions weren't swayed. 

“Your far from home, darling?” Trey asked again. Amy belatedly realized that she never answered his question. 

“Mm, Denver,” she grunted out between bites. She took up some of the slices of cheese and bit into them, two at once. She couldn't remember the last time she had human food. Some of her time in the desert to her was fuzzy, as though those memories were stored in a corner of her mind she wasn't actively using in the moment. Which made sense. She was not very coyote-y presently.

Trey's hand still slid up and down her bare back, sliding suggestively under where she had her towel on. “Oh, that's far, darling. How on earth did you land all the way out here?” 

_Well, I was kidnapped by these assholes, dumped out in the middle of bum-fuck Utah, then turned into a werewolf, _Amy thought to herself. 

She chuckled internally, then stopped, nearly dropping the chicken bone from her BBQ covered fingers.

Werewolf. 

The word for it hadn't occurred to her before but there it was: werewolf. 

She went through body melting levels of pain and came out the other side as a canine. What else could it be described as other than a bonafide werewolf transformation? 

_I thought werewolves would be more like giant furry monsters, not _actual _wolves_. Amy's transformation into an actual coyote seemed to challenge her more traditional notion of the Hollywood werewolf that she's seen in movies. But as she spun her experience through her mind (the heightened senses, the coyote thinking and even the nonsense with the moon), the more certain she was that she was victim of some werewolfing hi-jinks. 

_Wait, wouldn't it be a werecoyote? _Amy wondered. She went back and forth on it. 

_Werecoyote-ing hi-jinks? _

No matter what sentence she put it in, were-coyote continued to sound weird to her. For some reason, she humphed in disappointment. 

“Oh, I didn't mean to make you worry. I'm sorry, darling. You don't have to think about it right now if you don't want to.” Trey was shushing her and pulling her close to him. It seemed he misread her silence as a response to his question rather than as an internal freak out to something else. Thanks to the food in her system, she was actually able to push him off this time. 

“Thanks. I really appreciate that.” She straightened up, pulled her towel around her again, and stood from the couch, grabbing the Oreos in one hand. She walked around the coffee table and faced him from the other side. “It was just a lot to take in, you know?” 

She looked at his eyes, and tried to convey all the aspects of being victim to Something Terrible (TM). If she could just keep him from raping her until she got help, that would be great. She racked her brain with places that could conceivably be open 24/7 in a rural town that she would have a justifiable need for. “I just need to go to the cops. Or the hospital,” she added as an afterthought. She didn't think any stores would still be open but an ER sounded likely. 

Looking up at her from his seated position, Trey shook his head, “Nearest hospital is in Fillmore. And my radiator is busted.” He stood up, shrugging. 

“You can stay the night, if you'd like. I can drive ya in the morning,” his eyes lit up at that last statement in a way that made Amy very concerned.

She held his gaze a moment while she weighed her options. She couldn't take Trey on in a fight. She lost so much weight in the desert he'd easily be able to just pick her up and carry her if he wanted. And from what she saw of the outside of his trailer, it was entirely possible that he wasn't even lying about the car. With no cell service, she was genuinely trapped with him. 

[Daniel's hand gripped her wrists tightly as he thrust into her. She had her eyes squeezed shut and her head turned away. She couldn't block out his huffs of air as he panted into her ear.]

She shook at the random memory. The walls of the trailer were a god-awful beige. She realized that she hadn't actually noticed that before now. Trey was still looking at her expectantly. She licked her lips and decided to play meek and grateful. Daniel would sometimes leave her alone if she played meek and grateful. “Look, Trey. I really appreciate you helping me. You didn't have to be so nice to a complete stranger in the middle of the night, but you have been. And that's great. But,” and here she looked down and tried to be as meek as possible. “I've been through a lot, you know.” She tried to lay it as thick as possible in her tone. 

_Hopefully, he thinks I've already been raped today and leaves it alone._ “I really could just use some clothes and some sleep.” She looked at the towel stopping high up on her thigh. 

“Some clothes would be great,” she stressed. 

He looked her up and down. She slouched her shoulders and generally tried to be as pathetic as possible during his perusal. After a beat, he finally sighed. “Yeah, I got some sweats for ya.” 

He went across the living room into his bedroom and started fishing in his dresser. Amy munched on an Oreo in celebration. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several things happened at once: She realized how undressed she was, considering she was fully clothed when she went to sleep. She sprang up from the couch, a visceral reaction to the sensation of skin on skin that she couldn't have controlled even if she wanted to. The shock of her sudden movement seemed to have startled Trey enough that tumbling over him in an effort to get to the other side was actually quite easy. And also, deep within her, in a way she couldn't put words to, she felt a growl.
> 
> She didn't growl. Something within her did.
> 
> What the...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings out the wazoo.

The couch stank like Frito chips and male body odor. She huffed at the thought that the coyote would have known that much earlier in the evening, but she had to wait until her face was pressed up against it in order to find that out. She pulled the fleece blanket up higher over her shoulders, burrowing into the fabric. The blanket smelled of dryer sheet. It seemed he didn't use it often so it retained that laundry smell. Luckily, her borrowed clothes also had the freshly laundered smell. She ducked her chin to get a whiff of the shirt. Apparently, Trey goes heavy on the bleach with his whites. 

_Damn coyote time in the desert, I'm super obsessed with smells now. _

She wondered about those memories she had. She knew she remembered feeling herself turn inside out. She remembered the crazy onslaught of information she had about smells and sounds, and the feel of gritty sand under her paws. She even had the sensory memory of trotting around on four legs, her muscles twitching with the reminder. But as she lay on the couch in the dark listening to Trey toss about in the next room, she began to doubt what had happened. 

_Fucking magic desert and its stupid trippy moon. Werewolves aren't real. And certainly not as a coyote. Werecoyote isn't a thing. _Dismissing the whole idea, she punched the decorative pillow under her cheek once more to try to bend it into a comfortable shape when she felt a massive sense of disappointment in her body. 

All of a sudden she wanted to cry. 

_Clearly, I'm too tired to be testing my reality right now. _She swiped at the tears in her eyes. She knew that she was due for a meltdown but that it wasn't going to happen within hearing distance of Trey. She pulled the laundry blanket smell closer to her face and tried to shut off her brain. 

[Daniel was sliding his hand up her leg and tugging it over his leg, pulling her over his body, her back to his chest. She was still half asleep but didn't struggle; Daniel liked to wake up this way. He didn't say anything and neither did she. He wormed his hand into her clothes, pulling anything out of the way that was an obstacle to him but otherwise ignoring the rest. She would have rather slept more. He woke up early for his shifts, and explaining to him that she didn't want to be wakened up for sex at three in the morning resulted in more fights than she had energy for. She felt the cool air hit her previously sleep warmed skin and shivered at the contrast while Daniel positioned himself underneath her. He grunted with effort...]

...the grunt in her ear wasn't Daniel's. Amy shifted in confusion. Slowly, the dream started to fade and she realized that hands were pulling at her limbs, and someone was grunting next to her. But it took an endless moment to fully shake the dream off and realize that Trey had second ideas about letting her sleep. Amy froze in place, the movements of the body next to hers on the couch being more obvious now. 

_What? Do I..., _even Amy's thoughts stuttered. With Daniel, it was always easier just to let him do his thing. But that was her husband. And she did, sometimes, enjoy sex with Daniel. At the very least, she knew what to expect. But Trey, she didn't even want him within handshaking distance of her. He made that strange grunting noise again, more high pitched than Daniel's, which seemed to be the conclusion of some struggle he was having with his pants since immediately afterwards she felt bare, warm flesh press against her naked bottom. 

Several things happened at once: She realized how undressed she was, which was odd considering she was fully clothed when she went to sleep. She sprang up from the couch, a visceral reaction to the sensation of skin on skin that she couldn't have controlled even if she wanted to. The shock of her sudden movement seemed to have startled Trey enough that tumbling over him in an effort to get to the other side was actually quite easy. And also, deep within her, in a way she couldn't put words to, she felt a growl. 

She didn't growl. Something within her did. 

_What the...?_

Standing across the room from Trey, Amy was shaking, and quite frankly, she couldn't tell why. Her borrowed sweatpants were around her knees so she hastily pulled them up. She kicked the blanket twisted around her feet away in anger. The sense of violation was familiar and annoying. Is that why she was shaking? Or is it because of the growl? Why did she growl? Or rather, what growled? What the hell was happening to her? 

Trey had gotten to his own feet and was righting his clothes as he stepped around the coffee table closer to Amy. Amy shrunk back, wrapping her arms around herself. 

“Look, I didn't mean to scare ya, you were just so warm and comfortable, ya know?” Trey came up to her smiling and slid his hands up and down her arms. The growling feeling in her rumbled. 

Amy was looking at the ground. She was off-kilter and had no idea how to deal with this not-Daniel situation. In lieu of actually answering, she shrugged. 

In her passivity, Trey stepped closer, sliding his hands up and around her shoulders. “Shhh, its okay, ya know? I can keep you safe and I can make you feel good.” He had his arms around her now and was pulling her close. He stank of male sweat and stale coffee breath. 

The growl within her happened again. This time an energetic, jittery feeling in her muscles joined the growl, tensing up her body. She felt like a coiled spring in Trey's arms. She suddenly had the urge to move away from him; not for her own safety, but rather for his. 

_What the hell? _Amy was confused by that sensation but took a step away from Trey anyway. Trey's arms tightened around her and pulled her back in. 

“Shh, shh, shh,” Trey shushed her as he resettled her into his arms. The growling sensation felt like she was pacing back and forth even though she was standing still. Her muscles were still tensed with energy and she was finding herself having to hold herself back from pushing Trey away. Normally, she'd feel the need to keep herself restrained to avoid making someone mad, but now, something about the jittery feeling told her that she could seriously hurt him. 

“Trey, mmmph,” she pulled her head back from where his shoulder was muffling her words. “Trey, I don't want this.”

Trey stilled, his arms freezing in their glide up and down her back. He pulled back from her, shifting back to restraining her with his hands on her crossed arms. His eyes held a challenge in them. “But I can make you feel good. You do want that, don't you?”

Her arms pebbled in goosebumps as she realized that he wasn't going to take “no” for an answer. The growl in her realized this at the same time. Without her permission, the coiled spring feeling released, and the tension in her muscles unleashed all at once, slamming Trey across the room. His legs hit the coffee table landing him in a heap on the couch. 

Shocked, Amy went to apologize but a snarl came out instead. Trey was a fumbling, cursing mess, trying to pull himself out of the couch cushions. Amy went over to try to help him up, reaching out a hand. Trey was finally able to sit up and reached out to grab her hand when he suddenly recoiled, cutting off his litany of curses, after glancing up to her face. His face visibly paled as he hunched over to the side of the couch, staring at Amy in slack-jawed fear.

“What's wrong?” Amy asked. Only, instead, there was more snarling. 

_What the hell is happening now? _ Amy was almost resigned to nonsense by this point as she took herself to the bathroom mirror to see what was wrong. 

At the first glance in the mirror Amy ducked in fright. She had a wild moment of fear that there was something in the bathroom before she registered that the figure she saw ducked as well. 

_No. _

_What? _

_No!_

Turning back, she looked for the figure again, this time tracking how its movements were similar to hers as she entered the frame of the mirror. 

The beast, for there was no other word, was some combination of hairy and furry. It had Amy's long hair around its head, but then there was some strange fuzz down the side of its face where a man's beard would go. The fuzz stopped at the chin and cheek leaving a strange mutton chop pattern. The forehead was jutted out in a Cro-Magnon kinda way and the eyebrows were bushy and thick. The skin covering the forehead and cheeks was too leathery and dark to be human. But the worst of it was the mouth. The figure's mouth had long pointed teeth jutting out from the top and bottom lips, which were blackened, creating a vicious-looking maw. Amy turned her head to the side to get a better look at the teeth and watched in horror as the figure's head turned to the side as well. 

More bizarrely, she realized the figure had her own hazel eyes. As human and normal as ever, her eyes seemed alien on the grotesquely distorted face. She screamed in terror, backing out of the bathroom.

“...get here now! And bring your shotgun! Like I said, you hafta see it to believe it.” Amy whirled around to see Trey shouting at his phone. 

_Oh, so __now_ _he has service, _Amy thought to herself distantly as her body propelled itself forward. She had the strangest sensation of hunting in the desert as a coyote. It was as though she had two distinct parts of herself. The coyote-in-the-desert part of her was currently running the show, launching her body towards the door, and the part of her that had eaten dinner with Trey hours earlier was just watching what was happening. Her body ran out of the trailer and loped away from the neighborhood back towards the desert.

_Noooo! Not the magic desert! _ But her body ignored the warnings and ran back out into the dark. 

Behind her the sky had started to turn pink as the sun started its daily round. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, when she came within sight of the trailers, she steered clear of the one she knew Trey was in. In full daylight, she could better see her options. Most of the trailers were dilapidated and run down. Some were single-wides, some were double, some had various cars parked either in the yard or on the street nearby. The folks in this neighborhood had clearly seen better times. She thought about using the street to venture further into the town and try her luck out that way but there was a brightly colored one a few down from Trey's that caught her eye. This single wide trailer had a little AstroTurf lawn, a little pink flamingo and two bright yellow lawn chairs. It had a cheeky, ironic feel to it and seemed delightfully out of place when compared with the sad, droopy trailers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, she has some interesting discoveries. Trigger warning for male genitalia?

_What the fuck! What the fuck? __What_ _the __fuck._ No matter how she turned it around in her head she could not make sense of what the actual fuckery that was happening to her. 

She was pacing around in the desert, the stupid fucking magic desert, about three miles away from where the trailers were. She knew there were animals nearby but none close enough to be worried about and she didn't look too closely at how she knew that. The sun was still low in the sky and it was freezing in the way that only early mornings are. She could still feel her giant, grotesque teeth protruding out of her hairy, distorted face. The simmering growling feeling was skittering under her skin in a pacing feeling while the thinking-Amy part of her was literally pacing. It was odd to feel the same feeling twice. 

After the thorough perusal of her humanity earlier, Amy was feeling betrayed by her body. This strange animal-human hybrid thing she had going on seemed to rock her sense of sanity more than even being full coyote did. She couldn't make heads nor tails of any part of this experience. 

_Heads or tails? Really? Tail jokes? _She thought to herself in agitation. Then she became almost manically amused by her own thoughts. _Tail jokes! Get it? Cuz I'm apparently part animal now and I might have a tail!_

She halted in her steps, suddenly concerned. She twisted her torso and pulled the back of her borrowed sweats to take a peek. On a relieved sigh she confirmed that no, she did not have a tail. _Oh thank fucking god. _

She did have some new body hair though, that seemed inordinately... abundant. It was difficult to get a good view of her backside from this twisted vantage point but she did note some troublesome furred patterns on her butt cheeks. The dusting of hair crept up her backside and even furred around her tummy. Pulling the elastic band from her body as she twisted back around to view the front portion, she noticed the furriness thickening between her legs before dusting back out down her thighs. And right in the center of the whole mess was something new. Something decidedly more worrisome than a tail. 

“When did I grow a dick?!” She was shocked enough to ask this out loud. 

She looked out at the sandy horizon, then back at the offensive member, then up at the sky, then back to her groin. Each time she looked, it was still there. She kept hoping that at some point her hallucination would end or something about the penis would suddenly make sense. But nope. The most confusing penis she had ever seen, still hung there. And a penis it certainly was. A long protrusion, nestled on a wrinkly ball sack, jutted out from between the vee of her legs. The member itself was rather long and apparently uncircumcised. She took a few steps in a circle, watching that part of her body move around in response. Now that she was paying attention, she could feel the member bounce around against the top of her thighs.

“What the fuck?!” She demanded. The magic desert was still unhelpfully silent. The presence of the penis raised some other questions about her anatomy. She did a quick pat down on her chest. Her breasts were still there. She peeked under the shirt for visual confirmation. The fuzziness traveled pretty far north on her belly but stopped about diaphragm height. Which meant her breasts looked much the same as they always hav, but they rested on a nest of fuzziness.

_What is with the hair? Seriously? _

She tentatively reached down into her pants, both needing to know and wanting to just pretend it wasn't there. She poked it hesitantly with her pointer finger. She felt the warm flesh against her finger and it simply felt like more skin. She realized that as much experience as she has had with male anatomy, she didn't actually have much experience with them in a flaccid state. Unsure what to do with that information, she filed it away and moved to poke it again. This time, she noted the feeling of the penis itself, being poked. But that feeling came from, or was registered by, the growling feeling inside her. 

Amy still didn't know how it worked, but the thinking-Amy part of her wasn't the part that felt what happened to the penis. The feeling of having two distinct selves within her had been brewing all night but this had pushed her over the edge.

“Okay okay okay enough!” Amy, angrily let go of her pants and started pacing in the desert again. “Apparently, I can turn into a coyote and fucking forget who I am for four months! Four months!! Then when I try to be human and whole again I turn into this fucking rage monster thing! That has a dick!!” She was screaming out at the silent desert, gesturing to herself as she ranted. Oddly, the growling feeling has subsided and seemed to just be sitting there, waiting for her to finish. 

“What! The Hell! Is Happening!! To ME!?!” She screamed into the emptiness. The horizon was unmoved.

“Well?!” She waited expectantly. “Hello?!? Tell me something!!” She demanded. She continued to scream and shout, hearing her cries echo back to her. The tears and the rage built up inside her until it coalesced into a vast expanse of unfairness. 

_This shouldn't be happening to me. _ Tears were threatening to spill over from her eyes as she fixated on how unfair the whole situation was. _Those men took me from work, whoever they were, and dumped me into a magic desert where I turned into a were-coyote that has an outie instead of an innie and then I couldn't get help without a side of Handsy McGee and now I'm stranded in the desert, hungry and tired. Again! _

Those men that brought her out here were surely to blame, but without any idea who they were or why they did it, her anger had no outlet. She paced back and forth for some time, stuck on the injustice of it before the anger spun itself out but she was still miserably stuck in the desert. She half-heartedly kicked a rock in her pout. Arms crossed, she glared at the expanse of sand. She wistfully thought about someone helping her. All the movies she had seen, there was always some wise figure helping the hero figure out of the nonsense they were in. Luke had Obi-Wan, Harry had Dumbledore, Frodo had Gandalf. Hell, even Joy from Inside Out had Bing Bong to help her out. What she needed, was her wise figure. All the movies promised her one. She was owed at least a mentor in the event that shit hit the fan.

_See, this is part in the story when some wise old Indian man comes out of the desert making some snappy jokes about how I'm being an idiot, screaming at nothing, then he takes me to some mystical cave where I have a vision that connects me to some ancient knowledge that not only explains what is happening to me, but also shows me the destiny that I'm going to fulfill. _Amy was still scanning the horizon, waiting for the magic desert to suddenly make sense of this. _I'll do a training montage to learn how to handle it, fall in love with some bookish, hot guy who helps me on my quest... _

By this point Amy had settled herself into sitting on the ground, leaning against a rock. She barely noticed the cold, her temperature dropping in the wake of her chaotic thoughts. She started to fantasize about how the movie version of this shit show would go. There are helpful people she can talk to about what's happening to her, and in the end, she uses her grotesque maw to chew on Daniel's face and everyone she knows is cheering her on. She gets so involved in this little daydream that the sun had risen to its zenith, though the land refused to absorb its warmth. Apparently, the idea of deserts always being hot was either a myth or this magic desert was an anomaly. Either way, the rocks she rested against had chilled her rather uncomfortably. 

She was calmer now, and hadn't been yelling at nothing for a while. Her stomach grumbled though. And mostly, she just wanted to lay down and sleep. The oreos and her two hour nap from last night were poor substitutes for what she really needed. She thought about heading back to the collection of trailers but shuddered at the idea of a repeat of Trey. Tapping her bare feet against the ground, she considered what she should do. 

[“Well there ya go again. Every single time, I swear.” Amy snapped back to attention at Daniel's words. He was shaking his head at her. Turning to look at what she was doing to disappoint him again, Amy saw that the pot she was stirring had boiled over. Her awareness registered the smell of burned marinara sauce and from the look of the stove, it had been there awhile.

“Oh my god, I'm so sorry!” She leaped into action and grabbed the rag to try to clean up the mess.

“No, you idiot. Move the pot first. God damn, why do you even bother trying to cook? You always burn it. Even when you're looking right at it.” Daniel shook his head again and left the kitchen, muttering something about burning water. 

Amy looked back at the stove and tried to remember when she started zoning out this time.]

Looking at the sky, she realized how much time she had lost so she decided to try asking for help again. Sooner rather than later, especially since her time in the magic desert was only adding to the crazy. But she couldn't be around people looking like a freak. She idly reached out with her hand towards her face, just to acquaint herself with the dental nightmare in her mouth, but all she found were her normal teeth. She ran a finger along the incisors and cuspids, naming them on the way. She double checked that they fit nicely in her mouth the way human teeth should. She did a few peeks under her clothing as well. She found smooth, fuzzless skin under her shirt, and with great trepidation she peeked under her sweats to find an absence of a dick. _Thank merciful Zeus. _

She wondered briefly if she had imagined it, before shrugging off that train of thought. The probability that she imagined the dick is as high as her imagining the pouncing of mice and the smell of Trey's couch. Clearly, she wasn't going to be able to pick and choose which experiences were real. In her examination, she also noticed that the growling feeling had faded. It wasn't gone. Now that she was more familiar with it, she could still sense it under her skin, but it was banked. 

This “growling feeling,” as she referred to it in her mind, seemed distinctly different from the rest of her. And, considering that it was faded at the same time that her face was normal, it seemed to contain parts of her monster-face experiences. Amy still felt uncomfortable referring to parts of herself as separate from the rest of her, but there was no other way to explain to herself what was happening. 

Either way, this was probably her best case scenario for asking for help. The sun was bright in the sky, her face was normal, and whatever was happening to her was currently quiet. She got up from her pile of rocks, and ventured back towards the trailers again. Apparently, when she's rocking her monster face, she's faster on her feet because the walk was much longer this time than she remembered it being this morning. Again. 

This time, when she came within sight of the trailers, she steered clear of the one she knew Trey was in. In full daylight, she could better see her options. Most of the trailers were dilapidated and run down. Some were single-wides, some were double, some had various cars parked either in the yard or on the street nearby. The folks in this neighborhood had clearly seen better times. She thought about using the street to venture further into the town and try her luck out that way but there was a brightly colored trailer a few down from Trey's that caught her eye. This single wide had a little AstroTurf lawn, a little pink flamingo and two bright yellow lawn chairs. It had a cheeky, ironic feel to it and seemed delightfully out of place when compared with the sad, droopy trailers. 

Having decided, she braced herself and went towards it. She maneuvered around the little yards and tried her best to seem like she was approaching the trailer from the street, rather than the desert, but her clever ploy was ruined when the door suddenly swung open and a young woman jumped out. The two women both jumped in fright from the other in mutual surprise at the sight of each other. 

“I'm so sorry!”

“No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean...”

"No, I was just coming to knock...”

“And then I scared you! I'm so sorry!”

“No, its okay! I'm just looking for some help,” Amy and the other woman spoke over each other in their mutually effusive apologies before Amy was finally able to get out why she was there at all. 

“I have been in the desert,” she turned to wave behind her at the never ending horizon before finishing lamely, “for awhile.”

Amy must have looked particularly pathetic in that moment because the woman's eyes widened in shock then concern before starting to usher Amy inside the trailer. 

“Oh that's awful, come in. Let's at least get you out of the sun. Are you thirsty? Let me get you some water.” The woman spoke as she ushered Amy to sit down then fussed about in the kitchen, talking all the while. The woman was wearing cotton shorts and some kind of band t-shirt. Her dark hair fell in waves around her face, she had wide eyes and a friendly smile. Amy was so glad she tried this trailer. The layout was identical to Trey's but the upkeep was noticeably better in this one. The walls were painted a bright orange with sunflowers painted up and down the walls. The carpet was clean and there were two bright red loveseats sitting invitingly catty-corner to one another in the living room. The woman was in the kitchen, off to Amy's right, getting Amy a glass of water and off to Amy's left, beyond the living room she could see the closed door to what must be the bedroom. 

“Here, drink this to start, then we can get you some more. You don't want too much at once if you've been out in the sun too long,” the woman handed Amy the glass. She drank greedily for several gulps before the woman gently tugged it back down. “You want to take it slow. Here, have a seat.” 

Amy went to sit on one of the love seats. It was surprisingly comfortable, and she settled in with a sigh. The woman sat on the other love seat, placing the water she poured for Amy on a side table. 

“Thank you. I really appreciate it,” Amy said as she gestured around her to signify that she was thanking her for more than just the water. 

The woman waved it off with a flick of the hand, “It gets awful out there. Did you get lost?” The woman eyed Amy's clothes, probably wondering why someone would go into the desert with just sweats and a shirt. 

_Oh, you have no idea, _she thought to herself. Out loud she said, “It's a long story. I'm Amy. Amy Kemp.”

The woman caught on to Amy evading the question, but smiled comfortably anyway. “Hello Amy. I'm Erika. Why don't you drink some of that water and I'll get you something to eat as well. Sit tight, I'll be right back.” 

She went back into the kitchen and started rustling around in the cupboards much like Trey last night. Amy grimaced involuntarily and hoped for more than oreos this time. She drank some more water and listened to Erika's bustling. The love-seat she was on was surprisingly comfy. She settled in and breathed deep, pulling her feet up onto the seat and under her legs. She thought she could close her eyes for a few while she waited for Erika.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, Yesteryear Auto its called. But, its a junkyard. We have old cars and old car parts that we sell to those willing to go digging for it. I run the front office during the week. And I'll be gone all day tomorrow, which means we should get on what you need today.” Erika held her coffee cup with both hands, looking at Amy over the rim.
> 
> Amy realized that this was Erika's way of asking both what Amy needed for help and for her to do it today so that Amy can get out of her house before she had to go into work. Amy's esteem of this patient and kind woman went up several notches.

A sudden blaring noise brought Amy to her feet. It took her a moment to gain her bearings before she realized where she was and what was happening. The sky outside the single-wide she was in was bright blue with the light of early morning and the blanket around her feet showed that she was covered at some point in her sleep. On the table next to the love-seat sat a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and a glass of apple juice. Clearly, she had slept, rather dreamlessly, for the better part of a day and a night.

The sounds in the bedroom seemed to indicate that the homeowner was getting up and dressed. Amy's mind was fuzzy, so it took a minute to dredge up the name of Erika. After taking stock of herself and the room, Amy realized she felt comfortable enough to eat the food that was left for her. Ravenously so.

While eating, she fell into a contented hum of chewing. But as the sandwich disappeared, she noticed a sense of growing agitation. With everything that had happened recently, Amy tuned into the feeling and tried to make sense of it. It felt like she had forgotten something. She spent a few moments trying to put her finger on it. She didn't have keys or a cell phone to keep track of, which were often her biggest sources of that forgetting feeling, so she was left fairly stumped. That was until she noticed the mustard smell of her sandwich. It seemed quite muted to her. She took a few experimental sniffs before realizing she was expecting it to smell the way smells in the desert did: rich and nuanced. She realized, rather to her annoyance, that things smelling dull to her human nose caused her to feel like she was forgetting something. That “growling feeling” inside her seemed to huff and pace. If that was a thing. 

Shaking off that confusing feeling she went to put her mess away. She was in the kitchen putting the empty plate in the dishwasher when Erika finally emerged from her room. 

“Oh, hey! You're up!” Erika's greeting was as bright as her smile and the tension Amy didn't realize she was holding eased a bit. 

“Yeah, thank you. I really needed the rest.” Amy felt so much better this morning. Apart from the feeling of desert dirt covering every inch of her, she almost felt normal. 

“You seemed like it,” Erika nodded. She moved around her kitchen, starting the coffee machine and popping some toast into the toaster. She left out the loaf and pulled out far more condiments then she likely used herself and gestured towards it to Amy in a silent request for her to help herself. Amy had just eaten a sandwich but felt her hunger to be teased rather than satiated so she moved to pull out some slices for herself. After some silent shuffling, the two ended up munching companionably at the little dining table. 

Between sips of coffee and bites of toast, Amy could feel Erika studying her. The perusal did not feel hostile, so Amy simply sat and munched, waiting for Erika to come to her own conclusions. 

“I have a day off today, but I have a shift at the junkyard tomorrow,” Erika volunteered. 

Amy raised an eyebrow. Somehow, with the bright decor, Amy was surprised by this. “You work at a junkyard?” 

“Yeah, Yesteryear Auto its called. But, its a junkyard. We have old cars and old car parts that we sell to those willing to go digging for them. I run the front office during the week. And I'll be gone all day tomorrow, which means we should get on what you need today.” Erika held her coffee cup with both hands, looking at Amy over the rim. 

Amy realized that this was Erika's way of asking both what Amy needed for help and for Amy to do it today so that she can get out of Erika's house before she had to go into work. Amy's esteem of this patient and kind woman went up several notches. 

“Well, in that case, I think I need help getting back home.” Amy did an experimental sniff of herself for show, “and a shower.” With this she also looked down at her borrowed clothes. She wanted a new set of clothes but outright asking for some more from the already generous Erika seemed like asking too much. Wearing the dirty clothes after a shower seemed non-negotiable to her so she considered other options. “And maybe the use of a washer and dryer?” 

She looked up at Erika to gauge the reaction. The other woman was shaking her head, “I have some clothes you can have. What kind of help do you need? Should we go to the cops?” Erika had her head tilted to the side in a hopeful gesture. 

Amy wasn't sure on that front. The whole incident with Trey for some reason put her off going to the cops. Not only did the magic-desert turn her into a coyote, but also she was capable of some freaky, body transformation stuff even while human. There was a frustrated huffing feeling inside her that came from her Not-Amy part, which solidified for her how unpredictable her existence was. She felt safe with Erika, but she wondered if it was even ethical to be sitting here with her. What if the growling-feeling hurt Erika? Amy had to take the unpredictability of her situation seriously, but she wasn’t sure where that line was. 

“I don't know. I'm kind of … going through some stuff,” she stated vaguely. _Now, that doesn't sound weird at all,_ she thought to herself judgmentally. 

Erika seemed unperturbed though, “What kind of stuff?” Then, she simply sat and waited, as though she had all day. 

In the silence, Amy fiddled with her now empty plate, pushing a few crumbs around with the tip of her finger. “Well, it's a little complicated,” she told the top of the table. She felt young in that moment, as though she was a kid being asked by an adult to justify her actions. 

“I can see that it's complicated,” Erika said patiently. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but it would help me to help you better if I knew what was going on.”

As kind as she knew Erika was being in that moment, that young feeling intensified until she felt like crying. She sniffed and nodded. “Yeah, I get it. And I probably should talk it out, but I don't know if I can.” Amy still addressed her plate on the table and fought her tears.

Erika took pity on her. “That's fair. Why don't we get you set up with that shower. We can make plans for the day after that. Let me get some clothes for you.” Erika got up from the table and started shuffling in the dresser in her room. To gather herself, Amy cleaned up the breakfast mess, loading the dishwasher and putting the food back into the places she saw Erika pulling them from. 

When she went to meet Erika by the bathroom, Erika had a neat pile of towels and clothes. She pointed out where the shower products were then left Amy to it. Amy heaved a sigh of relief to finally be within striking distance of a shower. When the hot water started she made a near pornographic moan. She had no idea the pleasure the process of simply showering could be. She ended up dallying and taking far more time than necessary, scrubbing herself twice and just relishing in the feel of the soapiness. The repetitive motions of washing and the feeling of water sluicing over her was hypnotic enough that she passed the time without thinking about anything. When she finished she felt not only clean, but clear-headed. She spent the few minutes of drying off and dressing going over in her mind how to tell Erika useful information without venturing into the Sci-Fi channel parts of her adventures. 

She had dressed and was about to go into the managing her hair part of her morning routine when she really noticed her reflection in the mirror. She stared wide-eyed at herself a moment, just taking it in. The first thing she noticed was how gaunt she was. Her weight loss seemed to show up in her cheeks and her neck. She was also much darker than she remembered. She wasn't sure how much time she had spent in the sun in her human skin but regardless, she seemed more than tan. She seemed sun-baked. She also had far more freckles than she was used to and they were far darker than usual. 

Also, she noted with some extreme dismay, she had a giant bite scar at the juncture of neck and shoulder. Right where she had shooting pain when she first arrived in the desert. _Those assholes bit me,_ she thought with anger. 

It was scarred over, the skin of the bite shiny and pink. She pulled down the collar of her borrowed shirt to look at it more closely. She could see the individual teeth marks, like the imprint step in making a braces mold. _Shit._

Sighing, she allowed the collar to fall back where it was, covering up the wound. 

She went back to studying the rest of herself. Cataloging these changes and looking for others before she realized she was looking for the coyote in her face. 

Her teeth were human and squared, her lips were red and chapped and her nose was round. She studied her eyes trying to see if she could spot the lack of humanity in them, but they simply stared right back at her. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed. She seemed to be dissatisfied that she couldn't find what she was looking for but she couldn't tell why. 

_Maybe the growling part of me knows why,_ she thought idly. 

Thinking about that strange otherness within her that she had been feeling on and off brought to her awareness a vague restless feeling she hadn't noticed before. She had gotten sleep, food and a shower but there was something else she needed. Something else she needed to move towards and she was restless to get to it. But it felt like that restlessness wasn't hers. She tried to feel it to identify it but found it to be slippery to keep her awareness on and it would skitter out of her consciousness if she pulled too hard at it. So she stood there, in the tiny bathroom, trying to figure it out. At one point she felt it strongly. That's when the eyes of her reflection flashed red suddenly.

Startled, she jumped back with a cry. She nearly fell into the toilet with the loss of her balance and had to brace herself with the towel rack to steady herself causing a clattering racket. She could hear Erika calling from the living room if she was alright. 

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she called back hesitantly. 

She stood back up in front of the mirror on shaky legs. Her wide, scared eyes looked back at her. As hazel as usual. Also, they were not burning. She didn't notice the burning sensation until after it passed but at some point her eyes felt like she had splashed soap in them. She leaned in and turned her head side-to-side to try to get the light to hit them funny. No red flashing. 

She stepped back. 

_Maybe I imagined it? s_he wondered hopefully. 

Inside her, something sighed. 

She stared a few more moments, waiting for her face to do something else, before deciding she had been in the bathroom for long enough. She ran her fingers through her hair a few times as substitute for the usual brushing and hair-straightening regimen she typically did, then ran some toothpaste over her teeth and gums using her finger before calling it good. 

Her dental hygiene experience caused her to cringe at the nightmare she was putting her teeth and gums through. _One crisis at a time, _she sighed.

With one last challenging look at her reflection, she emerged from the bathroom. 

Erika was in the middle of folding laundry in her bedroom when Amy came out. Standing in her doorway, she waved tentatively as Erika wrestled with some fitted sheets. 

“Hey. You okay? Sounds like you had some issues in there,” Erika's smile off-set any sound of reproach her query could have held. 

Amy shrugged, “Just lost my balance. I'm okay.” 

Erika continued smiling at her at this answer. “Okay, well, what are your thoughts about what you need today?” She turned her attention to the clothes she was folding, but Amy knew it was a deliberate move to make her more comfortable. She had pondered this very question while in the bathroom but didn't come up with a suitable answer. 

To buy herself some time, she checked in with Erika non-verbally that it was okay to enter her room. When Erika nodded she made her way to the little chair beside Erika's dresser and sat down. She watched Erika fold towels for a minute more before deciding to just share the story. This way Erika knew where she was at in getting started today. 

She started her story, sticking to the truth as much as possible but leaving out the loony bin parts. She spoke of being taken, of waking up in the warehouse, then the van, then the desert. She spoke of trying to walk to safety. She glossed over how much time had passed, simply hinting that it was a while. She spoke of trying to go for help, of knocking on a random trailer glossing over her own nudity at the time. She spoke of Trey. 

She surprised herself by tearing up at the memory. She felt fear and disgust at the telling of it that she hadn't felt while it was happening. It was as though the feelings had finally caught up to her. When she had to stop the story to catch herself, she decided to give a briefer version of the story for her sanity. Finally, she got to the part where she knocked on Erika's door for help. 

“And now I'm here,” she finished lamely, looking up at her host. 

Erika had moved to sit on the edge of the bed during the telling, eyes wide and hands fisted on her legs. “That's awful,” she said with feeling. 

Amy nodded for a bit, considering. It _was _awful. And, as though a dam had burst at this realization, Amy started sobbing. In all her efforts to get back to people, to get back home, to stay human, to make sense of it, to not die in the desert, she hadn't had time to just feel the weight of it. There was so much emotion to what was happening to her and so little space up to now to really have those emotions. 

Once the sobbing started, she just let it happen. She felt Erika move towards her and wrap her arms around Amy as Amy just melted down. She rested her head on this stranger's shoulder and just wailed. She couldn't reign it in even if she wanted to. And frankly, she didn't want to. 

In that moment, the wail felt holy. Like her body was crying out in protest on behalf of the soul inside. Like Erika's soothing murmuring was a benediction. 

In that moment, she felt forgiven. Forgiven for what was unclear. And even later, when Amy would think back on this moment, she would still struggle to make sense of it even though its feeling of importance never faded. She felt forgiven. She felt that whatever was happening to her, as scary as it was, was okay. 

Shame she didn't realize she was holding lifted from her shoulders and she felt lighter. 

A part of her sighed again, this time in comfort and relief. 

After several moments of snuffling and relief, Amy's tears dried up and she was simply being rocked by Erika while the other woman hummed soothingly. Amy debated just staying, resting in Erika's arms forever, before she realized that Erika would likely let her stay there for an embarrassing amount of time. She eventually took a deep breath and moved away. Erika let her go but held onto Amy's upper arms for a moment. 

“Whatever happened to you, you're safe here. And I'm going to do everything in my power to help you get back home.” Erika's eyes were wet from crying too and she was so earnest in her declaration. 

If it is at all possible to feel loved by a stranger then this was most certainly that. The overwhelming feeling of gratitude and affection for this woman who just accepted Amy into her home with no questions and looked at her now with such determination and empathy was enough to have tears spilling over again. Amy melted back into Erika's hug. 

“I know,” she said weakly. She realized, oddly, that she had known since yesterday when she first met Erika that she was safe here. _Is this what friendship feels like? _

It felt strange to feel so close to someone she had just met. But given some of the other strangeness she’d been through, Amy just rolled with it. 

After a bit she pulled back again, noticing that Erika kept allowing her to be the first to move away. Erika wiped her eyes and smiled at her. “I can use some more coffee.”

The abrupt topic change startled a wet and welcome laugh out of Amy. “That sounds great.” 

Together the two moved back into the kitchen, allowing the mundanity of setting the table and readying coffee to settle them. After such intimacy of that moment, there was some awkwardness in how they moved around each other. Erika pulled out cookies and Amy blew her nose. Once they settled at the table though, they found companionable silence again. Though this time, the silence felt heavier than it did this morning. When the coffee finished brewing, Erika got up for it and poured them both a mug before settling back in. 

“So, do you have any idea who those men were?” She asked. 

Amy shook her head and sighed. “And I have no idea how to find out.” The impossibility caused her to feel heavy. 

The other part of her huffed in annoyance. _Yeah, I know, _she agreed with herself.

Before she could think too deeply about literally conversing with the strange otherness she had within herself, Erika was suggesting going to the police. 

“I don't know,” Amy shrugged. “It happened in Denver and we're a little ways from there.”

“Well, the police would know where to start at least,” Erika insisted. She reached for her phone. 

_Apparently, there _is _service here,_ Amy grumbled to herself while she sipped her coffee.

“We'd have to go to the sheriff's office in Fillmore.” Erika did some tapping on her phone, “yeah, Millard county Sherrif's office,” she listed. She looked up at Amy. 

Swallowing, Amy nodded. _What the hell am I going to tell them? _


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She scanned the room she had just entered then made a beeline for the women's room. The last time she felt her eyes burn like this they flashed red in Erika's mirror. And the loud growling feeling preceded her hulking out as a beast in Trey's living room. Either way, she needed a moment to regroup.
> 
> Erika followed her silently, closing the bathroom door behind her. It was a one toilet situation so Amy had nowhere to go away from Erika but luckily her reflection in the streaked mirror revealed Amy's normal face. She studied it a bit just to be sure.
> 
> No fangs at least.
> 
> “Its okay. Being nervous is totally normal but you can do this. And don't let Trey scare you. That guy's a weasel...” Amy realized, with some shock, that Erika was trying to cheer her up or something. Between how much urging and help she has needed to even get this far, Amy wasn't sure why Erika hadn't given up on her yet.

Awhile later, Erika and Amy were pulling up to the sheriff's office in Fillmore and Amy still had no idea what she was going to tell them. Mostly, she needed to get back home and she doubted involving the police was necessary for that. Couldn't she just call her parents and have them send bus money? 

Erika must have seen the hesitation on her face because apropos of nothing she said “If those men aren't caught, they'll likely do the same to others.” 

Amy looked back at her while they idled in the car. That other feeling scoffed and growled. Finally, Amy sighed. “Alright. Lets do this.”

Erika was reaching to get her purse from the back when Amy noticed the men outside the sheriff's office. There was a group of four men, two in uniform, that were standing around talking casually. One of them caused all the hairs on Amy's arms to stand up and for the growling feeling to roar up into her awareness.

Trey. Trey was standing there. Just chilling with two sheriff's deputies. 

Erika had grabbed her purse and was walking away from the car before she noticed Amy hadn't moved. She came over to Amy's window and tapped her out of her reverie. Amy had to physically shake herself into opening her car door. 

“You okay?” Erika squatted to bring herself to Amy's level next to the car's seat. 

“No, I don't think so,” Amy replied, staring right at the group of men. The other feeling inside her was pacing and growling at the sight of Trey. She could feel the phantom feeling of hackles rising on the back of her neck that were not there.

[The coyote paced and growled, its paws on the desert sand, the smells of the other animals rich in its nose. These animals stank of running and digging in the ground and of the feathers of their last meal. The coyote's hackles were raised as he braced himself for a fight.]

“..okay to be nervous, but the cops are here to help you.” When Amy's attention came back to Erika she noticed that she had missed much of what the other woman had said. 

“Wait, what?” 

“I said, that I know it must be hard to share what happened to you to them, but the cops are only here to help. And I'll be there the whole time if you want.” Erika's earnest eyes looked at Amy imploringly. Amy hated to think she was disappointing her new friend. 

“No, its not that. It's that,” at this Amy pointed at the clustered men across the street ahead of them. When Erika turned to look she added, “the one on the right is Trey.” 

Erika did a double take and scooted closer to Amy behind the car door. “Trey? _That _Trey?”

Amy nodded. “_That _Trey.” 

The growling feeling inside her grew. 

“That's so crazy, I know that guy,” Erika was leaning into Amy's space trying to see him through the windshield of the car. 

“Well, he is your neighbor,” Amy supplied. _Did I forget to mention that? _

Erika looked at Amy then shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.” Turning back to the street she asked “What does this mean?”

Amy sighed. “Apparently, it means he has friends in high places.” 

[For the fifth time that day, Amy's phone rang with an unidentified number. She was waiting to hear back from potential jobs and from potential renters so she couldn't just let it go to voicemail. Sighing, she picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Hello?” The masculine tone that spoke was mocking and cloying. “Is that how you answer the phone you dumb bitch? It should be...”

Amy didn't stay on the line long enough to hear how she should answer the phone. For the past week different men have been calling her at all hours. At first, given what they were saying, she had thought that _someone _had put out her number in a sex ad. And by _someone_ she meant Daniel but she knew there was no way to prove it. But then over time, the nature of the calls turned from sexually aggressive to just mean and she realized that his friends were just harassing her. Again, she still had no way of proving it. 

She put the phone down and cradled her head in her hands. 

_I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry. _She repeated the mantra until she felt more grounded. She didn't feel better, but she also wasn't at the breaking point anymore. 

Around her in the break room, her coworkers continued to eat and gossip as though nothing was amiss. 

_Thank god._ She had no idea what'd she do if they knew. She started to pack up her uneaten lunch when her phone rang again. It startled her enough that she jumped and dropped the phone. She anxiously checked her phone for cracks in the screen and but tears had clouded her vision.]

“Yeah, well, just because he's friends with a couple of them doesn't mean they can't be trusted.” Erika's earnest face seemed so at odds with what Amy knew that she wondered if she was crazy. 

_Maybe I'm overreacting. Daniel isn't Trey. And come on, these are the cops. Get a grip, Kemp. _She nodded and started to unbuckle her seat belt. 

The growling feeling actually snarled at her. _Jesus, you get a grip too_, she scolded herself. 

The entire walk across the street Amy felt the distinct sensation of dragging something on four legs behind her. 

She and Erika walked across the street and were about to enter the building without any fuss when at the last moment she lifted her head towards Trey and saw the moment when he recognized her. His eyes cleared and his hand went towards the guy on his right in a “look at that” gesture.

That snarling feeling grew and she felt her eyes burn so she lowered her gaze to her feet as she walked in. 

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. _

She scanned the room she had just entered then made a beeline for the women's room. The last time she felt her eyes burn like this they flashed red in Erika's mirror. And the loud growling feeling preceded her hulking out as a beast in Trey's living room. Either way, she needed a moment to regroup. 

Erika followed her silently, closing the bathroom door behind her. It was a one toilet situation so Amy had nowhere to go to get away from Erika. Luckily, her reflection in the streaked mirror revealed Amy's normal face. She studied it a bit just to be sure. 

_No fangs at least. _

“Its okay. Being nervous is totally normal but you can do this. And don't let Trey scare you. That guy's a weasel...” Amy realized, with some shock, that Erika was trying to cheer her up or something. Between how much urging and help she has needed to even get this far, Amy wasn't sure why Erika hadn't given up on her yet. 

_I am such a hot mess. And that's just from the parts that she __does_ _know. Why does she even bother with me? _

_Maybe I _am _a monster, _she thought suddenly, thinking about the reflection she saw at Trey's. Between that and the bite mark she knew was on her neck, she was confident in her assessment of being a supernatural creature of the night. She tried to mentally organize what she did know about her situation: she can turn into a coyote that hunted and ate mice, smells were rich and amazing when she had her coyote nose and dull and flat through a human nose, the moon itched under skin when it was full, she occasionally had a dick, (this one she mentally cringed at) she may or may not have a beast face that comes out when she's scared or whatever it was that Trey did to her, and she had a “growling feeling” inside of her that seemed different from the rest of her. All told, it wasn't much to go on and all the facts were vague in their own right. 

Mostly, it added up to her being afraid of herself. 

During Erika's prattling and her own morose thoughts, Amy continued to look at her reflection to reassure herself she wasn't currently turning into anything. She continued to stay human looking despite how the growling feeling continued to pace in the back of her mind. Giving up the quest for the moment she nodded at Erika and the two left the bathroom. 

Amy went into auto pilot. When she was with Daniel, she learned how to shut down and still say the right things and smile like everything was fine when they were in public together. She hadn't had to use it often since she left him. But with the growling feeling threatening to break free and with Trey being _somewhere_ nearby doing _something_, she gave into the automatic response with relief. 

Luckily, Erika did most of the driving anyway. She explained, on behalf of Amy, that there was a crime to report and after some back and forth with the man at the front desk, the two of them ended up in some beige office with a kindly, older man named Deputy Hayes. Amy mostly just stood there and tried her best to not to be too freakish.

After some encouraging from both the deputy and Erika, Amy started her story. She told of the night she saw someone else's face in her car window, and of the warehouse. She knew that the men were discussing something but her mind felt slippery looking at those memories. 

The deputy asked some questions about the two men and the van, but Amy's memories were hazy and the deputy seemed disappointed at the lack of information. He informed her that finding the two men with such little to go on may be hard, but Amy expected as much. 

Amy went through the rest of her story, leaving out both the Sci-Fi aspects as well as the emotional ones. She also skirted past exactly how long she'd been gone. She delivered the story with the same enthusiasm one has for reciting a grocery list. When she neared the end of her story she caught Erika looking at her with confused expectation. 

“Well, that's one I haven't heard in a while. And technically the crime happened in another state...” the deputy leaned over his chair reaching for something in his desk drawer. Amy looked at Erika and tried to convey _What's wrong? _with her eyes.

Erika glared back and nodded her head towards the door in an exaggerated way. _What about Trey?_

_Oh. _Amy had omitted the Trey part of her story entirely. 

It didn't occur to her that Erika would mind. She shook her head at Erika in a measured fashion. _Its not a good idea. _

Erika widened her eyes and looked at the back wall pointedly. There, behind the back of the deputy still rummaging his desk, the insignia for the sheriff's office was painted large and proud. She turned back to Amy with emphasis. _They're cops_. 

Amy sighed, looked down, then looked back up Erika, pleading with her eyes and shaking her head. _Please, don't make me. _

Erika slumped her shoulders and after a beat, nodded reluctantly. _Fine._

“...contact info. Ah! There it is! So, yes, I can just give them a quick ring and look into it for you...” the deputy had continued on about jurisdiction and interdepartmental communications during the silent exchange before emerging back to address the two women directly. “I'll have something for you by the end of the week. In the meantime, do you have someplace to stay?” 

Amy turned to Erika automatically before realizing the pressure she was putting on her. Stopping herself she turned back to the deputy. “Actually, I don't. Erika here has already been so kind but...”

“But nothing,” Erika interrupted. “She can stay with me until she gets what she needs to get home.” She nodded to punctuate the decision while glaring at Amy. _Don't you dare argue with me on this. _

Amy slumped her shoulders and nodded. _Fine. _

Then, with an idea, she turned back to the deputy. “Actually, I can probably get home sooner if I could find the contact information for my parents?” She lifted her voice at the end, turning the statement into a question. “I lost everything, including my phone with all my contacts in it. Is it possible you can help me with that?”

The deputy considered for a moment, “Well, its technically not policy to hand out contact information to folks without some kind of identification.” 

“But she lost her identification,” Erika cut in. “She was kidnapped and dropped in the desert without her ID.” 

Erika was all righteous anger and protective of Amy and Amy was baffled by it. She literally met this person yesterday. She hadn't done anything to warrant this kind of care from Erika, and the fear of disappointing her after being so kind flooded Amy. 

“I understand that,” the deputy stated patiently. “It's policy to protect the information belonging to the contacts. It's not in place to discriminate against victims, I assure you.” He looked back and forth between the women with an _I'm on your side_ expression. Leaning back to a table behind the desk, he pulled out a pamphlet. “Why don't you contact the local DMV and report your driver's license lost. We can go from there once you have an ID again.”

“I was finger printed!” Amy shot out suddenly. 

The deputy was in the middle of handing Erika the pamphlet and both turned to her in surprise. “When I was in high school I worked at a day care. We had to get finger printed to make sure no one was a pedophile. I'm in the database.” She gestured towards his computer. “Can you verify who I am from that?”

A part of her was unsure why she was pushing the issue. Yes, replacing her ID would take weeks and she had no intention of being her long enough for that But also, a google search to find her parents on the internet would take five minutes and wouldn't result in having to go through some paperwork process at the sheriff's office. 

The deputy's eyes brightened though. “Yes, we sure can! Come this a'way!” 

Getting up, he lead Erika and Amy back out into the main office and towards the back. Amy caught the eyes of the two men that were talking with Trey outside when she came in. There was no sign of Trey but the look on their faces was rather unsettling. The growling feeling snarled. She breathed in to try to calm it down and continued following the deputy. 

He stopped in front of what looked like a small copier. Petting it fondly he turned back to Amy, “We just got this puppy last month. Want to help us break it in?” 

Deputy Hayes must have been in his forties, but his eyes glittered young and boyish in that moment and Amy couldn't help the laugh that broke out of her. _Boys and their toys, _she thought to herself. 

He walked her through holding her hand on the screen while the computer scanned her finger prints. Then she and Erika sat and waited while he clicked a bit on the computer. Finally, he came to them with a print out and a victorious smile on his face. 

“You, my friend, are one Amy Kemp, daughter of Kevin and Leanne Kemp.” He made this pronouncement while handing over the printout with enough pomp that Amy thought briefly that he was wasted in the sheriff's office. The printout itself had her own file from the Colorado Bureau of Investigations listing several places of employment as well as her known addresses. The second had the same but for her parents' info. She was relieved to see some phone numbers listed. 

“Goodness, thank you! This is amazing.” She smiled at him gratefully. 

He bowed un-ironically, “You are so very welcome. I didn't see any missing reports yet, but there can be a lag on that for a few days. Once that comes in I'll know who the contact on your case is. Until then, I'll just reach out to the main office in Denver. I'll let you know what comes up!” He said this last with the tone of dismissal and he started to herd the two women towards the door. It was while they were walking back to the car that Amy realized what was amiss about what he said.

_My parents haven't filed a missing person's report?!?_


	11. The Kemps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leanne and Kevin Kemp get some distressing news from Maria.

**-4 months Earlier-**

“Leanne!” 

Leanne sighed, and went into the living room, carrying the towel she was folding with her. Her husband was sitting in his favorite recliner. “Do you see this?!” 

He was watching the game and apparently the Cardinals were not doing so well against the Cubs. She made a sound of empathy then she threw the folded towel over her shoulder and went to replace his empty beer can with a fresh one. They finished the yard work that morning, making sure the lawn was freshly mowed and that the flower beds will come in nicely this summer. She was rounding out the weekend by finishing up the laundry and preparing for the week. Which, was admittedly much easier now that the kids were gone. Kevin didn't get quite so annoyed when his team lost if there weren't also kids running around the house being noisy. She brought him his refill then went on with the rest of her chores. 

She was in the middle of soaping up the bathtub when her cellphone rang in the other room. She wiped her hands off before answering. “Hello?”

“Hello, are you Mrs. Kemp?” 

“Yes, I am, who are you?” 

The woman on the other end laughed nervously. “I'm so sorry! I'm Maria Gonzalez. I work with your daughter? Amy? At the dental office?” Maria lifted her voice at the end of each part, making one statement into three different questions. 

“Oh goodness! Hello! How are you?” 

“I'm good, thanks. I'm so sorry to interrupt your weekend.”

“Oh, its no problem at all, is everything okay?”

“I think so?” Maria asked, “I mostly wanted to check in with Amy.”

Leanne started in surprise. “Amy? You called to check in with Amy? Oh, this isn't her number. I have her number though...”

“No, I have her number too,” Maria interrupted. “She hasn't been answering. I found your number in her emergency contact information. I was hoping she had gone back to Missouri for a bit.”

“She's not answering her phone? Maybe its off. Is it something urgent? You can probably talk to her about it at work tomorrow.”

“Oh no, that's...” Maria sighed, “Amy hasn't been at the office since Wednesday, Mrs. Kemp. Have you seen her at all?”

Leanne was floored. 

The last time Leanne had seen her daughter was at the annual Mother's Day Brunch that the kids did for her every year. Everyone still flew in for the major holidays and Leanne was so blessed that Mother's Day was among those. The visit was only slightly marred by Amy's divorce. Why that girl felt she had to leave her man was anyone's guess. “I haven't seen her since May. Did you check in with Daniel?” 

“Yeah, he hasn't seen her either. We're a little worried.” 

After some back and forth, the two agreed to keep in touch if either of them had heard from Amy. Leanne was so worried. It wasn't like Amy to take off like that. She called Amy's phone herself, just to check, but all she got was Amy's automated voicemail greeting. Leanne went into the living room. 

“Come on you guys!” Kevin was yelling at the TV, apparently the Cardinals were doing very poorly if he was resorting to shouting. 

“Kevin, honey?” Her husband shouted a bit more before turning his attention to her. 

“What is it?” 

Leanne explained the phone call she had just received and Maria's worries. “I'm worried. Do you thing something happened to her?”

Her husband waved her off. “No, she probably just took up with some new guy.” 

He turned back to the game. 

Leanne was shocked. “Taken up with some guy?! How can you say that?” 

She stood in front of the TV to demand his attention. “She wouldn't do something like that!” 

Kevin raised an eyebrow at his wife. “Amy? We're talking about Amy here?”

Leanne put her hands on her hips. “Yeah.”

Kevin sighed and leaned to the side to watch the game around her. “The same Amy who used to sneak out of her window in high school? The same Amy who jetted off to Colorado with the first guy who asked? The same Amy who got engaged and married within four months? The same Amy who up and divorced a perfectly decent guy for no reason?” 

He looked back at her with both eyebrows raised as if to make his point. “That Amy?”

Leanne sighed. 

Amy's behavior since she was a teenager had been, well, unpredictable. Leanne guessed she was lucky that it was just Daniel through all those boy-crazy years, and at least it wasn't a whole slew of different boys. “She wouldn’t just up and disappear though. She hasn't even shown up for work.”

“Yet,” replied Kevin, still craning to watch the game. 

“Yet?”

Looking at her, Kevin repeated, “Yet. Amy hasn't up and left her job without a word, yet.” 

He took a sip of his beer. “I tell ya, she just met someone new and didn't want to deal with the talk about how soon it was after her split, so she left. She'll call back before the fourth for the barbecue. All apologies. You'll see.” 

Leanne did recall how clammed up about the divorce Amy was. Maybe she met this man before she separated? Leanne certainly thought she raised her daughter better than that, but how much can a mother really know her kids? She sighed. “you're probably right, but that girl is gonna get it when she calls for making me worry.” 

She went back to cleaning the bathroom. 

A month went by and Amy never did call for the Fourth of the July barbecue. By then Leanne was so angry about the silent treatment that she swore she'd never talk to her daughter again, even if she had come to her begging for forgiveness. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They then returned back to the trailer to cook and clean in preparation for Erika's work week. All the while they talked of mild things. Which Avenger was their favorite, the music they liked, that sort of thing. Erika shared a hilarious story of pooping in the bushes outside of a high school party and Amy shared the embarrassing story of dropping the cymbals in her high school production of Phantom of the Opera during “All I ask of You.” They both laughed, comfortable in the distance the years left between now and what was, at the time, a very painful moment of being ostracized for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for violence and blood and character death.

The ride back to Erika's house was subdued. Amy was lost to her own thoughts. 

_Did mom and dad even try to look for me? Do they know that I'm gone?_

[She was crying on her bed, the taffeta of her gown crinkling against the comforter with every sob. She heard her bedroom door open, then after a moment, felt the bed dip with her mom's weight as she sat next to her. Amy ignored her and continued to cry. 

“Why aren't you at prom?” Amy cried harder. She couldn't stay at the dance any longer, not with the things Daniel was saying to her. Trying to get the words out proved to be too difficult and she was just too enraged to focus too hard on it. 

She managed to get out “He kept saying things!” in between gasping for air but the syllables got muffled in the pillow. She felt so stupid, crying to her mom with her crushed corsage on the floor. 

“What kind of things?” her mom asked, while threading her fingers through her daughter's hair, gently unpinning the bobby pins and loosening the curls. 

Turning her head to the side so she can be heard, she said “He kept making comments about the other guys. Like how I couldn't dance with them and how he better not find me with one of them.” 

Her tears were running down her heated cheeks as she remembered his threatening leer as he said that last part. She genuinely feared him in that moment.

Her mom tutted. “Amy, you're supposed to dance with the date you came with.” 

“But mom, I wasn't doing anything!” 

The comments he made seemed to come out of the blue as she had been laughing with her friends over their silly dance moves from a boy band song when he came over to pull her away. She was at a loss since everyone she had been dancing with before Daniel's freak-out was a girl or gay. 

“I know that you think you weren't. That happens. Sometimes we hurt people without realizing it. Maybe you can talk to Daniel about it tomorrow. Hm?” Her mom kept soothing the fingers through Amy's hair but it was no longer comforting, and Amy waited for her to go away.]

Amy was so frustrated. Did her parents not care about her at all? She mused about how happy they seemed when Daniel took her off their hands. She knew she was being dramatic, but a part of her didn't care. It hurt too much. Knowing that her parents weren't looking for her caused her to feel that deep _not-good-enough _feeling.

Once they finally arrived, Erika sedately led her back into the trailer. Dropping her keys and purse she flopped herself down onto one of the love-seats and Amy followed at a slower pace. They sat there a moment before Amy started wondering what was going on in Erika's mind. She turned to look at her and was startled to find Erika already watching her. 

“Do you want to call your parents?” she asked. 

_Emphatically no, _she thought to herself. She needed some time with everything before calling up her mom. “You know, I may wait until tomorrow, if that's okay.” 

Suddenly, she remembered that it may not be okay. “I know you need me out of here...” Amy sat up to talk to Erika directly but Erika waved off her concerns with a flick of her hand. 

“No worries, we're good. I've already decided to give you the week. With everything going on, I figured you may appreciate just slowing down a bit.” She looked at Amy at that, impressing on her with her facial expression, that it really was okay. Amy sat back into the seat with a sigh. She allowed her body to fully relax and just stayed sitting like that for a few moments, basking in the comfort of just being. 

_Erika is right, slowing down is the best._

After a bit, they got up and puttered around. Using Erika's day off to their advantage, they went shopping for groceries and other essentials. Erika even made a point to get Amy some new underwear and socks and basic hygiene products. Amy was beyond pleased to get her own toothbrush again. The fact that four months had gone by without a decent teeth brushing was something she was working very hard to repress at all times. 

They then returned back to the trailer to cook and clean in preparation for Erika's work week. All the while they talked of mild things. Which Avenger was their favorite, the music they liked, that sort of thing. Erika shared a hilarious story of pooping in the bushes outside of a high school party and Amy shared the embarrassing story of dropping the cymbals in her high school production of Phantom of the Opera during “All I ask of You.” They both laughed, comfortable in the distance the years left between now and what was, at the time, a very painful moment of being ostracized for the both of them. 

It felt easy, working together and talking of nothing. Like they had been friends for years.

They had finished dinner and were cleaning up the kitchen again. Amy was quite proud of the work they did. Erika had her lunch meals for the week prepped. Amy's new clothes were washed and folded. All told, they made a pretty good team. 

Erika waggled her eyebrows at Amy. “M&Ms and Iron Man?” 

Amy grinned. “A movie? I am _so_ down. But you've been holding out on me. You have M&Ms somewhere?” 

Erika smiled at her conspiratorially and reached above the refrigerator, “In the chocolate cupboard.” 

“A chocolate cupboard?!” Sure enough, Erika opened the cupboard revealing boxes of chocolate cookies, several chocolate bars, a bag of chocolate chips, two bags of M&M's (plain and peanut butter) and some gallon sized Ziploc bags filled with an assortment of fun sized chocolate bars. It was, indeed, a cupboard dedicated solely to chocolate. 

“That... that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Amy said in a hushed whisper. 

Erika was pleased with her response. “Do not worry, I share.” 

Amy was about to reply when the sound of screeching tires interrupted their chocolate moment. This was followed by the sound of glass shattering and the shouts of multiple male voices that seemed to be coming from just outside. The two turned and ran towards the living room window to find the source of the noises. They looked out to see a group of men gathering and walking through the headlights of multiple cars parked at odd angles on the street in front of Erika's trailer. There seemed to be seven or so and several of them had bats and one even had a shotgun. 

“What on earth...?” Erika started before Amy threw her hand on the other woman's arm effectively silencing her. For, among the men, she saw Trey. He was waving and gesticulating in the direction of Erika's home. The word freak was heard across the distance a few times. 

Amy's belly dropped. “Oh no.” 

Before they could do anything, the group started to walk up to the door en masse. Several of the men planted themselves at different places in the driveway while the few that Trey lead came straight up to her door. Erika went and slammed the deadbolt a moment before Trey's fists landed on the door. 

“Go away or I'll call the cops!” She shouted. 

Outside, several of the voices lifted up in laughter. 

“Go ahead! We already have two deputies here!” came Trey's response. 

Amy started to get that light headed feeling she gets when she checks out particularly hard. She looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes inside her socks. She knew that as bad as this was, she needed to stay here for it. She tried to reassure herself that nothing too bad could happen to them. 

Erika shouted back at them “I'm sure their bosses would love to know what they're doing here!” 

This rejoinder resulted in a quiet moment among the men. They discussed among themselves for a moment in a lowered murmur. Amy hoped they'd decide to just go away. 

Unfortunately, Trey was a stubborn one. “We ain't got no problem with you! Send out the freak and we'll leave you alone!”

Erika looked at Amy and mouthed the word “freak” with questioning eyebrows. Something on Amy's face must have given her away because Erika then looked at her, crestfallen, like she had just found out that Amy had lied to her. She turned to shout again anyway, “My friend hasn't done anything wrong! And the sheriff's office is helping her with a crime so unless you want to mess with due process, I suggest you get off my porch!”

Apparently, they weren't too keen on the idea. A few moments of muttering later one of the deputies that Amy recognized from earlier that day, strode up to the front door and efficiently kicked it in. The economy of movement of his leg battering down the door was frightening in its matter of fact quality. He stepped into the entry made by the door being busted in, causing Erika to back up all the way back to the other side of the living room. He was tall, with a buzz cut and a rigid posture to round off the general impression of the military. Several of the other men spilled in as well, including Trey. 

“That one!” He shouted, pointing at Amy, “She's the freak!” 

“You better be right about this,” said the off-duty military deputy guy as he started towards Amy.

The next few moments were a bit of a blur for Amy as she panicked. The progression of events was quick and suddenly the tiny trailer was overfull of men who didn't belong there. There were rough hands yanking her around, demanding that she show her “freak-face.” She was surrounded and the catcalling was loud. She saw that Erika was being harassed too. Several of the men were circled around her on the other end of the living room. Amy felt so guilty for bringing this on her friend. 

Erika, meanwhile, was trying her level best to just get to her freaking phone. If she could just call the sheriff's office and get a unit to swing by the trailer park this nightmare could be all over. She eventually managed to pull away from the circling crowd that was grabbing at her waist and arms to run towards the kitchen where her phone was charging. As she rounded through the doorway she felt the weight of another body colliding against hers. One of the men chasing her into the other room had overestimated her speed and had crashed into her. The two of them stumbled onto the linoleum. With her socks, and his being off-balance to begin with, they spun around precariously. He moved his arm against her to counter balance his falling weight, effectively pushing her to the side. Directly into the corner of her kitchen counter. 

In the living room, Amy was mutely trying to make sense of the shouts around her when she saw Erika make a break for the kitchen. The chaos was briefly interrupted as a couple of men ran to follow her and, in the surprise her action caused for the other men, Amy pushed particularly hard. She nearly got free before the man readjusted his grip. She was about to kick him in the shin when a sickeningly loud crunch echoed through the space. The men clustered around the doorway to the kitchen fell eerily quiet and the men around her stilled. 

Military/deputy-guy was the one to ask what had happened. The men around the kitchen merely turned to look back at him. Their eyes were uniformly wide and their faces pale. But no spoken answer was needed. Amy immediately knew. 

The feeling of wanting to leave her body came back. Her face flushed, her belly dropped and she suddenly felt lightheaded. 

In that eerily still moment, she had a flash of clarity: that “growling feeling” inside of her was neither a feeling. Nor was it hers. 

She saw, in her mind's eye, her coyote. 

It seems that she didn't so much as _turn into_ a coyote, as she actually _had_ a coyote inside her. And right now, in this space inside her mind, he was sitting on his haunches, his bushy black tail resting to his side. He was watching her patiently. 

_What are you waiting for? _she thought incredulously. 

He leaned forward with his snout and huffed at her. 

Her eyes teared up. She nodded. 

While military/deputy-guy walked across the living room to investigate the kitchen himself, Amy turned to Trey. She was still being restrained by someone behind her. As the coyote inside her came to the surface she could smell the oil and tire smell of an auto-shop. As though his nose was coming online. 

It felt like the animal was resting beside her in her mind. 

She noticed that her eyes started burning as the coyote's eyesight became her eyesight. By then, Trey turned to look at her. She was gratified to see him shrink back away immediately and her coyote huffed with satisfaction. She didn't have a mirror, but she was confident her eyes were glowing red. She turned to the mechanic behind her and smiled at him. Well, she bared her teeth anyway. 

He immediately dropped her arms and stepped back in fright. Stepping away from the man and into the center of the room, she held each of the men's eyes in turn with her own. There was a discussion in the kitchen that carried out to them. 

“Aw man, this isn't good.”

“Dude, lets just call her an ambulance or something.”

“No man, she doesn't have a pulse.”

“Shit. Look we gotta...” military/deputy-guy had come back out into the living room but stopped in his tracks at the sight of Amy. The men following behind him stopped short too. 

“You killed my friend,” she said in a flat voice. She could feel the coyote kneel forward on his haunches. She could feel her face shifting as her senses heightened. She knew, from their reactions, that she was sprouting fur and fangs that she normally didn't have. “You killed a good person, for the purpose of seeing this,” she said, gesturing to her face. 

She turned to each of them one-by-one, to make sure they all saw her clearly. 

The coyote was snarling and her legs felt the jumping energy of him wanting to leap forward. “**You are monsters.”**

The men flinched from her. She wanted to say more, but the coyote had come too far forward for words and instead she merely growled. 

Trey, in all his blustering stupidity, came forward with a raised baseball bat. 

After that, all hell broke loose. 

While she still, for the most part, had the body of a human, the coyote was completely running the show. Much as he had when they were lost in the desert. He snarled and lunged for her, swiping with his clawed hands at the men as they tried to close in on her. 

In their shared mind, Amy was merely standing off to the side. She watched what was happening but she was a mess of anger and shock. She was thankful the coyote was so capable at this fighting thing. 

It took her awhile to notice how still the men were after the coyote was through with them. They fell to the ground, one by one, then stayed there. Once she pieced it together, she wrangled control back and the coyote yipped and snarled in his corner when she had the reigns again. 

She was panting, facing off with the last two remaining men. They were both scared and shaking. 

She took a moment to take in the fallen bodies around her. 

For that's what they were. 

Trey's gangly limbs lay sprawled at his sides, his head pillowed on his stringy hair. Military/deputy guy was only identifiable by what remained of his buzz cut and he had the blood smeared, milky-white ropes of viscera spilling from his belly.

She had underestimated how simple life was for the coyote. Kill or be killed. The coyote hunts prey for food. It did not have the same concept of death that she did and her stomach roiled looking at the bodies on the floor. She could smell the iron-tang of their blood dripping from her hands. And thanks to her increased sense of smell, she could tell from who each splat of blood on her borrowed shirt came. She breathed through her mouth to prevent the roiling nausea in her belly from cresting into vomiting.

The shaking men in front of her had placed their arms out wide in placation. She could hear their heartbeats thumping with adrenaline and fear. The smell of their cold sweat spiking in panic. 

“Go,” she husked out, her tongue thick and awkward and her lips moving strangely around protruding fangs. 

The men didn't waste a second and tripped over their own feet in their urgency. She heard their car tires squeal as they raced away. 

In the quiet, she could feel the coyote huffing in impatience. The thick smell of copper cloyed at her nose.

She made her way across the span of the living room into the kitchen, stepping gingerly over fallen bodies and dropped bats. When she entered, the bright lights reflected off the linoleum in a glaringly bright kind of way. She squinted. The coyote pulled back a little, allowing her human eyes to take over. The glare immediately eased. 

At the base of the counter, lay Erika. Her wide eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Her head had a ghastly chasm in it that matched the shape of the counter's corner. The counter itself had some hair and flesh clumped onto its edge. On the floor, the blood had spilled in a scarlet halo around her head. 

The door to the chocolate cupboard still yawned open. 


	13. Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter Sloan is an emissary faced with a future she doesn't agree with.

“But it doesn't fit!”

“I need some hair spray!”

“What do you mean you forgot the shoes?! We spent three months picking out the right pair!”

Winter wove through the chaos that spilled out into the hallway of the hotel floor. Debutantes, mothers and personal stylists were shouting at each other in their respective rooms but the frenetic energy of people running from room to room meant no one was safe from noise of shouting and blow dryers and the cloud of Chanel. She rolled her eyes at the third panicked screech she heard before finally getting to her friend's room. 

Rebecca Witte was in front of the mirror with her mother's stylist who was applying makeup. Willowy, tall, blonde and tan, Becky made a stunning figure in her white debutante dress. Winter inwardly sighed. 

“I brought sustenance,” she announced to the room, waving the drink tray of lattes and bag of scones aloft.

“Thank god! Real food!” Becky jumped up from her seat leaving the stylist, (Winter kept forgetting her name) crying out and scrambling to catch the disrupted pile of compacts. Becky came forward making grabby hands and Winter happily obliged. Becky's mom had put her on a perpetual diet when she was 11 putting Winter in the position of being Becky's illicit supplier of carbs. She was happy to do so but being on the receiving end of Candice Witte's ire so many times over the years has resulted in Winter always doing a vigilant double check of the room while in the presence of pastries. She did so now, noting the coast was clear before digging into her own scone. 

“Mmgggmmoood,” came Becky's praise of what Winter considered to be a rather dry and tasteless scone. 

“Dear god, can you at least make an attempt at the etiquette you learned?” The stylist snapped at her while arranging her many little containers and tools of <strike>torture </strike>beautification. 

Winter and Becky shared an eyebrow raise between the two of them. The ridiculous amount of planning and training that Becky had gone through to get to this particular debutante ball had been going on for years. Becky was doing it because it was easier than fighting with her mother. Even negotiating to delay it this long had resulted in many a screaming match. And everyone hired to help her were on edge about it. Winter did not envy her friend. 

“I need you over here so we can finish your eyes, we only have 45 minutes.” The stylist gestured towards the seat in front of the mirror again. Becky made apology eyes at Winter who shrugged. She finished scarfing the rest of her scone then joined the stylist at the mirror. Winter went to get herself settled in a chair off to the side of the room. 

Being Becky's go-to for her sanity, as Becky put it, meant Winter was used to parking herself in dressing rooms, stage wings and department stores waiting for when her friend needed something not on her mother's agenda. She had her survival kit of basic snacks, books and headphones which could see her through hours' worth of socially sanctioned torture. The esteemed Mrs. Witte used to try to kick Winter out of whatever pageant or shopping trip she was dragging her daughter to. But she has resigned herself over the years to Winter's presence, supplying only the occasional passive aggressive comment now. 

Part of Winter Sloan's tenacity came from the fact that Mrs. Witte didn't scare her. Becky was always impressed when Winter spoke her mind to teachers or youth leaders. She secretly thought her friend had gone through some abuse at some point, given how secretive and badass she was. In the past, when she tried to get her friend to talk about it though, Winter would laugh and change the subject. Sometimes, she would hug her friend tightly and whisper thanks to her for being such a good friend. Becky had stopped asking but still admired her bravery. Anyone who was fearless in front of her mother was a hero to her. 

Winter had just settled into her usual cross-legged reading pose with her history textbook when her phone rang. She made a gesture to Becky before leaving the room to answer the call. 

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, Honey. How's preparation for the ball going?” Madlenka Sloan, or Maddie to her friends, had a warm voice that always made Winter feel like she was coming home whenever they were on the phone together. 

“Well, we are on schedule,” she stated wryly as she noticed Candice rushing past her into the room with another stylist, (or was it a personal assistant?) carrying some large shopping bags. 

“As long as the crazy is predictable,” her mother affirmed. 

“Yeah. I'm probably going to duck out once the show gets going. I have that comparative lit paper due tomorrow and I need to edit it.” Maddie's rules for Winter always going along with Becky's pageantry adventures was that her own responsibilities would not be sacrificed. Her mom made it clear that this rule should be followed even though both girls were adults in college now. As a way to circumvent any problems, Winter was always transparent about her progress with her studies. 

“Okay honey, I won't keep you. I just wanted to check in about the email you sent to Alpha Oakes.” Winter groaned. She may have fibbed about that particular email. 

“Yeah, I was going to send it...” She started then trailed off as she realized that she didn't really have a mom-approved excuse for why she didn't send it. She could hear her mom sigh over the line.

“Honey, if you want to work with the Krause pack next year, we need to get on that. You know lycanthrope contracts take forever,” her mother's tone had shifted into her worrying voice. 

Winter worked very hard to avoid hearing that voice, but any mention of anything involving her future seemed to elicit that voice without fail. 

The problem was, she didn't want to work with the Krause pack. 

And she knew her mom wouldn't approve of what she did want to do. She knew that the best way to throw a wrench into her carefully mapped out future was over dinner where she could use her grown-up words and advocate for herself in person, but she also knew she was a coward in the face of her mother's disappointment.

“Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to be a pain, I promise, but I read Uncle Voight's personal book-”

“You did NOT do that young lady!” Her mother snapped at her mid-sentence. Winter froze, she wasn't aware that it was off limits. 

She hesitantly said as much to her mother. Her mother waited a moment, as though she were collecting herself before answering with a sigh, “It's not.” 

Now, Winter was just confused. So she offered up “Okay,” without adding anything. 

She had been going through her family's library of books for years now as part of her training. Her mother was fully on board and had a liberal policy around education so Winter wasn't sure how she'd overstepped. “Personal book” was code for grimoire, which was often more of a journal than anything else, of the druid that owned it. She had read several emissary journals so she didn't really see the difference between the two. The library held two or three such tomes of some of the notable druids in Winter's remarkable, and deliberate, lineage. 

She waited silently on the phone for her mom to say something while the chaos of the debutante preparation continued around her. She could hear shouting in Becky's room. Winter and her mom were unlike Becky and her mom. While Becky's primary form of contact with her mother seems to be mid-argument, Winter had only heard her mom raise her voice a handful of times in all her 20 years of life. 

“Look, honey, I shouldn't have reacted that way. I'm just worried, is all.” Winter knew that. Worrying was her mother's main emotional experience. It still didn't explain why mention of her uncle's grimoire caused the outburst. She knew her uncle died under mysterious circumstances, but that was fairly common of emissaries. 

Winter looked over her shoulder at the cracked door of Becky's room. The shrill yelling inside was gaining in volume. Apparently, they were revisiting last week's argument about Becky's chosen escort. She took the opportunity to sneak into the stairwell at the end of the hallway before saying anything to her mom that could be forbidden for outsiders to know.

“If I'm not supposed to read any grimoires-” she started before her mom cut her off again. 

“No, it's not that. Are you in public right now?” And this is where Winter's well-honed sense of secrecy came from. No one can know about what Winter and her mother were talking about. Even Becky, her closest friend in all the world, cannot know about the werewolves or how her family serves them. She double checked the stairwell she was in for any noises. 

“I'm alone.”

“Okay, honey. I'm so sorry to be doing this over the phone, but I've noticed you dragging your feet on important parts of your training. And you've been doing a lot of research on druidry. I know about the experiments you've done without Mr. Davis. And reading Voight's grimoire instead of emailing Alpha Oakes...” here she trailed off as if to leave the implication of Winter's priorities to speak for themselves. Winter was still confused.

“Yeah, I've been researching druidry. Because I'm a druid.” She stated the obvious for her mom, confused as to why this was an issue at all. 

The Sloans had originally come over on the Mayflower and were the oldest emissary family in North America serving the oldest pack of werewolves in North America. She was training specifically to take over for her dad one day, just as her dad did for his mom, and so on, back through the centuries. Their family was so serious about their emissary duties that a mail-order bride type situation was arranged with a clan of druids in the 1800's to infuse their lineage with a little something “extra.” Every generation or so resulted in a spark, someone who can actually wield the powers of her ancestors. Her uncle Voight was the one of his generation, and Winter was the one in hers. 

She even looked the part of a mystic. She was ivory skinned with raven black hair that she wore long. She wore a lot of black simply because colors looked out of place on her. She also had fiercely blue eyes. No one else in her family had quite the dark blue orbs that she sported which seemed to further separate her from everyone else. The wolves kept their distance during pack meetings saying she smelled “off.” 

And her parents were particularly fussy about her training, basically micromanaging what Mr. Davis was teaching her which is why she had to try the incantation work on her own. 

Winter was so frustrated by the unspoken limits being placed on her. Mason Oakes, the heir apparent of the Oakes Pack, was doing a similar training to eventually take over for his dad as Alpha. Only Mason was going to go to England to meet the pack of his ancestors. They were more old-school and apparently had a closer relationship to their wolf than most American packs. There was even a rumor that someone in that pack had achieved alpha-shift. Which was unheard of. But Mason was going to get a chance get in touch with what made him different and learn how to control it better.

Meanwhile, if Winter was reading the situation right, she was to be a druid but not actively practice as one.

“I know you are, honey. But you have so much potential, I don't want to see you get sidetracked.” Her mom said patiently.

“Sidetracked?” Winter couldn't help the anger seeping into her voice. “All I'm doing is learning more about the druid side. That IS my potential after all, right? How can that be getting sidetracked?!”

“Oh honey, you are more than just a druid. You are going to be a great emissary someday.” Winter could feel her mom trying to urge her to calm down over the phone. But she wasn't having any of it. She tried a different tactic.

“I may be more than _just_ a druid, but I definitely am still a druid, and I need to know these things.” Her voice was pleading. She realized, again, that as a non-druid emissary, her mom may not actually understand.

“I know you do, honey, and I agree with you.” Her mom jumped in in solidarity. Winter noticed that her mom uses “honey” as part of every sentence when they were arguing. “Its just, like I said, lycanthropes move so slowly. There is a lot of ritual and tradition with emissaries and they don't exactly handle change well.” 

Winter sighed. So it wasn't her mother's concerns playing out here, it was the rigid Alpha Oakes'. He liked to have the exact same menu for every solstice gathering. Three years ago a newly-joined omega made a casserole of her own invention as a surprise. Lets just say it didn't go over well. 

This doesn't exactly bode well for her idea of going to France to visit the clan of druids that her forebears came from to learn more about her spark rather than serving the Krause's in Germany. But that can wait for another day. She was already exhausted from this exchange.

“Okay, mom. I understand. I'll come over this weekend. Is Autumn going to be in town?”

Her mom made a noise of affirmation and the two agreed to take the opportunity to get pedicures while Winter's sister was home too, then they hung up. Both knew the conversation wasn't over, and Winter, for one, was trying hard to not get preemptively annoyed. 

She liked the Oakes pack, she really did. Many of her favorite holiday memories as a kid included running around with the pups or watching everyone shift before entering the forest for the monthly runs. The kids are always more likely to shift to their wolf form throughout the month, with the adults reserving the full shift for full moons. But there were plenty of childhood pictures of Winter in a -very literal- puppy pile. 

She even liked Alpha Oakes. He has a sedate manner and is inherently intimidating. Every pack alpha is. But he always has candy in his jacket pockets for kids. And even as an adult, he will still offer her a tootsie roll or a toffee. And she never fails to laugh and take one. 

But she's always been an outsider; always different. And she knew that she needed to learn about her spark and how it works. She resented not being able to pursue that. As she walked back down the hallway towards Becky's room, she realized that she wasn't going to let him stop her. She knew that there would be consequences. But in that hallway, she had the certainty that she had to do it regardless. 

And guiltily, she knew that part of it was that she wasn't concerned about the consequences. As much as her family revolved around the pack, and as much as she loved some of the weres like they were her cousins, she knew she never felt like one of them. Technically, emissaries are not pack members. Rather, they were the liaisons between the pack and outsiders. Emissaries brokered arrangements between packs, helped secure the safety and privacy of the pack and advised the pack Alpha on pack matters as an outsider. 

Technically. 

But with their mutual long histories, the Sloans were as much pack as any of the weres. Except for Winter. She felt pulled elsewhere. She wondered if anyone else knew.

The shouting in the chaotic hallway had increased in her absence. Shouts of “five minutes left!” rang through down the hall. There were fully dressed and coiffed debutantes clustered in the hallway while moms and stylists ran around them, either oblivious to, or ignoring, the little silver flask being passed around. Further down the hall, was a cluster of dads in tuxes, the low masculine voices providing a lulling undertone to the high, frenetic feminine voices trying to get everything in order. 

She went into Becky's room, where the stylist was frantically trying to cover up mascara streaks on Becky's face. Candice and the second stylist (PA?) from earlier had left again.

“Oh my god, what happened?” Winter came fully into the room and immediately to Becky's side. Becky sniffed wetly and her tears started up again. 

“It's mom. She wants me to be escorted by Hunter.” The tone of voice suggested that her mom won this argument which answered the question about where she was. Candice was likely doing one last go-over on Becky's escort's appearance. 

“Okay,” Winter started, not fully understanding the problem. 

“So, you walk into the ballroom with Hunter instead. Do the dance steps that you practiced, then we get out of here and hit up the tri-delt party on the way back to campus.” Winter was rubbing her hands up and down Becky's gloved arms in an attempt to soothe her. 

“No, its because I'm supposed to marry him!” Becky said this loudly to the room as though her mom was still there to be argued with. “She kept going on and on about his good breeding and his trust fund and how I don't want to be one of those girls who chooses wrong. Ugh! She just hates dad is what it is! But now I have to go through the this whole thing and ugh, Hunter is the worst!” 

She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose loudly in it, leaving the stylist to glare at her as she had to reapply the makeup again. 

“You know, he still watches Pokemon,” Becky told Winter. Winter laughed. She actually already knew that about Hunter, as it seemed to be Becky's biggest complaint about him. At her laughter Becky made an attempt at a smile before failing. She ended up leaning over resting her face against Winter's shoulders. 

At this, the stylist threw her arms in the air with an “I quit” attitude before stomping out. Becky and Winter chuckled at the sound of the door slamming. Winter calmly soothed her hands up and down Becky's back as she rested there. 

“I don't want my mom's life,” she finally said into Winter's sweater. Winter simply held her for a moment, resting her chin atop her friend's head. She could clearly see Becky's future, per Candice's machinations, lined out for her. From debutante ball, to European trips, to yacht parties, a long engagement, a large wedding, a fancy honeymoon, and 2.5 children before 30. All of this with graduating with the degree she's working on as a minor footnote and her growing drinking or pill problem being quietly ignored. 

Winter sighed and squeezed her friend closer. Thinking about her ignored druidry and the Alpha's plans for her studies, she whispered back “I know.” 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memories and negative thoughts kept flooding her, all of it was unrelated but it all felt connected. It was like Amy could track how she killed Erika all the way back to her bad grades in elementary school.
> 
> "And that's the crux of it isn't it?" She realized. "I killed Erika."

It was thirty miles after fleeing Erika's trailer that Amy finally came back to herself. From what she can tell, she had run away from that nightmare, blood and adrenaline pumping furiously through her veins. But every time she blinked she still saw Erika's wide eyes, the glaringly bright kitchen lights illuminating every inch of her shocked face. The copper tinged stench of blood stayed trapped in her nose, no matter how many times she tried to snort it out. 

When she finally slowed down to a trot, she was able to take in her surroundings. She was in the desert. Again.

_Stupid magic desert_, she thought to herself with a sigh. 

She raised her snout in the directions around her to get a gist of what was in her vicinity. Some small rodents and sage brush, but that's about it. She huffed in satisfaction and kept heading forward. She was too agitated to stay still so simply continued the way she had been going, loping towards the horizon.

She trotted a few hours in this fashion, just blindly moving on. She kept trying to compartmentalize, to put the travesty of Erika's behind her, but her stupid mind kept replaying the fine details. 

[Amy was in the kitchen, scooping up the pieces of the shattered plate while Daniel stood over her. 

“You really are useless, aren't you?” he said, stepping away.]

Amy huffed and laid down, resting her snout on the ground. 

_I need some booze,_ she thought ruefully. 

[Erika's crestfallen face after one of the men called Amy a freak.]

Wincing, she tried to get back up again. 

[“Oh, Amy,” her mom's tone was defeated. She was holding Amy's report card. Outside, they heard the garage door opening, signaling that dad had arrived home from work. Amy's mom stuffed the paper and envelope in a drawer.

“Well, we can't show him that, now can we?” She said with a scowl and turned back into the kitchen.]

Amy shook her head back and forth. _Seriously, I'd give anything to be drunk right now. _

The memories and negative thoughts kept flooding her, all of it was unrelated but it all _felt _connected. It was like Amy could track how she killed Erika all the way back to her bad grades in elementary school. 

_And that's what happened isn't it? _She realized. _I killed Erika._

Erika's time was limited the minute Amy set her sights on that trailer for help and she felt repulsive for bringing this down on such a wonderful person. 

[Erika's earnest gaze in the sheriff's department bathroom. “You can do this, I have your back.”]

It was oppressive, remembering everything. Amy was just sitting with the awfulness and feeling powerless as she watched it play out in her mind over and over again. 

The waves of grief and guilt were too much to bear and it took awhile for her to realize that she wanted to sob, but couldn't. This brought her awareness to herself. She looked down at her fur, finally noticing the rather canine nature of her body. 

_Did I shift? I don't remember shifting. _She went into her mind to find that coyote presence she noticed in the trailer. Sure enough, the coyote was there. He was laying down too, in her mind's eye. He perked his ears up at her when her attention was on him. 

_If you're there then why...? _She honestly had no idea how this whole werewolf thing worked, but she was certain that something was amiss. _Surely, I'm not in full coyote mode without, you know, the coyote. _

She looked down at herself the best she could from her vantage point, fully taking it in. She noticed that, though it was the dead of night, her vision was clear and everything around her was easily identifiable. _Coyote eyes, check. _ An experimental sniff brought her the cacophony of desert smells. _Coyote nose, check. _ She flexed her limbs, scooting the sand around with her claws. _Coyote body, che-_

She interrupted her own checklist once she noticed that her paws weren't normal. Instead of the mundane paws of her coyote, they were clawed appendages. The claws themselves were four to six inches in length and black in color, protruding from a monstrous hand complete with opposable thumbs but with thick padding on the bottom of the hand. It was on these hands that Amy had been running all night and the toughened skin hadn't even blistered. 

She could feel that her nose was a snout and the burning in her eyes were that same red burn she knew from before. Looking down at the rest of her, she noticed that instead of the sandy brown fur of the coyote, she was covered in chocolate brown and black, not fur per se, but closely packed wiry hair follicles. Moving around to get a full view of herself she could see that she was hunched over rather awkwardly. As though, whatever shift this was, her spine seemed to struggle with making up its mind so she also seemed to be a cross between four legged and bipedal.

Also, she was giant. Now that she was paying attention, she could see that she easily towered over her usual height as well as having more muscular girth all around. In short, she was a beast. 

_What the hell? How did I not notice this?!? _She thought to herself, before she remembered what she had been distracted by and the crushing weight of loss and regret hit her all over again. 

She whined low in her throat from the hurt, a keening, animalistic sound. _What in the everloving hell?!? How on earth do I have so many ways to be a freak?!?_

Amy slumped onto the desert floor. Everything she was feeling was too much and she had no out. She had the sensation of being trapped inside her body and overwhelmed with panic by that experience. In her mind's eye, she retreated into that place where she and her coyote interact. She pulled up her legs into her chest and rocked back and forth. The coyote, sitting next to her, just looked at her. She made a frantic shooing motion with her hand until the coyote huffed and stalked off. She could feel the coyote taking over. She shifted from whatever monstrous skin she was in back into a normal coyote shape. From her reclusive vantage point, she felt the pain of muscles tearing and bones stretching as background noise. She was aware what was happening to her body but in an afterthought kind of way. 

Once the shifting finished, the animal pulled itself up and loped off. 

Amy sighed. _I just need a little break, just to think. _


	15. The Farmhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, I got a call this morning from Alpha Gallagher about…” Richard waved his hands vaguely in Cael's direction to indicate the overall shitshow that had transpired. 
> 
> “Oh? Is he going to get his son to apologize or something?” Cael was dubious what a call from the Gallaghers could accomplish at this point. His life was already over. At least the life that he knew. From the moment Anthony Gallagher bit him, it was over. Kinda hard to fix what happened in a phone call. 
> 
> Richard merely raised an eyebrow at him. “This ain’t gonna end in an apology,” he chastised. Cael nodded. He knew that.
> 
> He really did, it just… it sucked.

Cael came to with a start. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

Ever since… he broke himself off that train of thought. No need to work himself up yet.

He cautiously took in his surroundings. The blankets were stiff and scratchy, there was a massive water stain on the ceiling above him and he heard the distant sounds of a tea kettle going off in the kitchen. So, he’s still at Richard’s farmhouse. Slowly, he moved his hand up off the cot to roam over his face, tentatively seeking out his mouth and forehead. Finding them to be human at the moment, he sighed and felt himself relax. 

He finds himself needing a moment whenever he wakes up. To take stock. In the past week, he has had a few too many “surprises” and now, he does things like take stock first thing in the morning. 

He lay for a moment, just listening to Richard move around in the kitchen. It was odd how comforting the sound was. Cael knew Richard to be one of the most fearsome men he’d ever come across, and their recent acquaintanceship was strange to say the least, what with Cael basically crashing with him during the worst days of his life. But for someone who had been a stranger to him a week ago, Richard’s presence in the other room soothed Cael’s jangled nerves in ways not unlike listening to his mom cook breakfast on Christmas. 

Cael didn’t know what to do with that realization. So, much like he has many times this past week, he put it away and simply got to the next task. 

Tasks. That was how Cael got through these past few days. Just focusing on whatever task was in front of him. Right now, the task was getting up. 

He lumbered off the low cot and hunted out some borrowed clothes. When he was first dumped at Richard’s farm, the older man had to go rooting for some serviceable clothes. Then again, after that first full moon. So now, Cael imagined he had the bottom of the bottom of the barrel of Richard’s old castoffs. Right now that included an overlarge and torn Cheeseburger in Paradise shirt that his broad shoulders were swimming in and cut off shorts that shouldn’t be worn outside of a gay bar. 

Instead of allowing himself the embarrassment of wearing those clothes, he merely put the feeling away and went out to the kitchen. 

Richard was seated at the surprisingly modern kitchen island in the wide old farm kitchen. Some of these older homesteads get updated rather haphazardly over the decades, leaving an awkward mishmash of different styles and trends. Richard’s farmhouse, though, was clearly a labor of love as the house had a streamlined melding of modern comforts and warm wood. The man himself was clicking on his laptop while his tea steamed in front of him. 

Cael never asked (it wasn’t really in either of their characters to ask such questions) but he suspected that Richard was in his fifties. Likely, he was older than he looked. Richard had one of those faces that refused wrinkles, and there was only slight graying of his brown hair at the temples. His athletically slim build reinforced an overall youthful demeanor that Cael thought was likely inaccurate. It also seemed likely that the man was divorced, given the lack of a woman’s touch anywhere. 

In silence, Cael helped himself to the fridge. He came up with some eggs and bacon and started frying them on the range. This had been their routine in the mornings for the past week.

Well, the non-nightmare mornings anyway.

Cael learned early on that, while Richard was helping him in many life-saving ways, the man was not Cael’s mama. He, therefore, had no interest in cooking for him. But he made sure Cael was comfortable enough to make full use of the kitchen to get his own meals. 

Getting dumped on Richard was a godsend. If he hadn’t… Cael shrugged off that train of thought. Imagining going through the past week alone was far too morose and bitter for this early of an hour. 

He focused on the task. Eating. 

At one point during the meal, Richard sighed and closed the laptop to focus his attention on his tea. 

As much as Richard was his ...mentor? It seemed strange to put a label to it, but that is essentially what this was: a mentorship. As much as Richard spent the past week mentoring and instructing Cael, sometimes more intensely than others, the older man didn’t come across as very ...mentor-ey. The older man swore, threw things when angry, drank himself drunk and got frustrated easily (once having to go out for a run for several hours in order to cool off). 

For a mentor, he just didn’t have a Jedi teacher vibe about him. 

Except for the tea. 

Cael watched this particular ritual every morning with a bit of wry amusement. Richard would close his eyes, bring the mug of tea slowly to his face, smell it, slowly sip it, and then just sit quietly for a moment. And he’d repeat that process until the tea was about half gone. The whole thing took about ten minutes. From Cael’s vantage point, it looked a bit like prayer, so he made sure to stay quiet during this moment.

But he thought this little morning routine with the tea was funny, especially when compared to a completely different ritual with the sixers the guy goes through every night. Cael eyed the overflowing trash can full of last night’s empties. Richard knew how to put them away. 

Shaking his head, he moved to clean up his breakfast mess, being gentle with the water flow so as not to loudly splash while he washed out the pan. Once he had put everything away, he found Richard watching him. 

“Dude,” he glared at the man. It was the first word said this morning. Richard skated right past the admonishment and started into business.

“So, I got a call this morning from Alpha Gallagher about…” Richard waved his hands vaguely in Cael's direction to indicate the overall shitshow that had transpired. 

“Oh? Is he going to get his son to apologize or something?” Cael was dubious what a call from the Gallaghers could accomplish at this point. His life was already over. At least the life that he knew. From the moment Anthony Gallagher bit him, it was over. Kinda hard to fix what happened in a phone call. 

Richard merely raised an eyebrow at him. “This ain’t gonna end in an apology,” he chastised. Cael nodded. He knew that.

He really did, it just… it sucked.

He gusts the air out of his lungs, “Okay, then what did he say?”

Richard shook his head and gripped his mug, contemplating the liquid inside as he rolled the mug in his hands. Whatever the news was, the older man didn’t care for it. 

“I like you kid,” he said to the tea. Cael startled at that. 

It’s not that he didn’t think it was true, it's just that Richard isn’t exactly a touchy feely guy. 

When Cael was wracked with fever and slowly losing his mind, Richard patiently kept him focused by talking to him and running cool water on him. When a supernatural creature ripped through Cael’s fragile human bones and skin, Richard snarled right at him and forced the beast into submission. When Cael got overwhelmed by all the sensations that the animal mind registered, and nearly forgot what human thinking was like, Richard smacked him out of it. Richard was the kind of guy to drag you kicking and screaming back to sanity when your DNA gets rewritten against your will. Then he’ll hand you a brew afterwards for a job well done. He’s not one for declarations. 

Furthermore, though there is a weird kind of closeness you achieve with someone when they literally slash into your stomach for your own good, Cael never really thought the man liked him. He assumed it was more of a grudging tolerance. He was rather unceremoniously dropped on the man’s doorstep the morning after his apartment was raided by Anthony and his friends. It made sense for Richard to see him as an unwanted burden. 

That whole night was hazy and Cael shied away from those memories when they came up. But he does know that he was bitten. By a werewolf, (that word was still strange to him). Then he was brought to the Gallagher compound for the night where he lay trussed up by rope in one of their many garages. In the morning there was a lot of yelling and, though the fever had gotten bad, causing Cael to float in and out, he could see Anthony and his dad arguing with each other over something. After that it was a bumpy ride in the back of the pick up and tossed in Richard’s yard. 

Since then Richard had only mentioned the Gallaghers once. “Alpha Gallagher will decide what happens once you complete the shift.” Cael wasn’t sure why Mr. Gallagher was _Alpha_ suddenly or what _deciding what happens_ will mean to him, so he put it away and turned to a task. He figured it’d come back around sooner or later. 

Apparently sooner is here, and it's bad enough to have Richard expressing feelings. 

“Uh, thanks...man. I like you too,” Cael hesitantly offered. “I’ve liked staying here.” 

Richard looked up from his tea at this with obvious dubiousness. Cael rolled his eyes and tried again.

“Okay, no, it's been hell. I’m gonna be fucked up for years after this week.” Richard chuckled at that. 

“But it would have been worse if I hadn’t been here. And I know that.” He looked directly at Richard then. “I can’t actually thank you for what you’ve done for me. But, thank you.” 

As the sentiment became more real, he felt more awkward saying it, so he was fiddling with the kitchen towel in his hands by the end of it. He abruptly dropped the towel once he realized he was doing it. Richard nodded at his tea. He violently cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. 

“Yeah, well, be that as it may, it seems like this week is just the start of a rough one for ya.” Avoiding Cael, he got up and walked the long way around the counter to get to the sink to rinse out his tea mug. “It seems like you’re not invited into the pack,” he said with his back turned. 

Cael watched as the man bypassed the dishwasher and instead, painstakingly hand washed the mug, then picked up Cael’s dropped towel to dry it. 

After a few moments of tense silence Cael offered up, “Okay?”

Richard turned around. “Okay?” He seemed confused? Angry? Cael didn’t know how to read the emotion in the man’s tone. 

“Yeah?” Cael was confused.

“It’s not okay!” Richard slammed the half dried mug down on the counter, cracking the whole thing in half. Werewolf strength is a bit of a doozy when you lose control.“They can’t just not accept you into the pack! I knew they were freaking out, but this is fucked up!”

Richard started pacing around in the living room during his rant. He kicked at the sofa a few times whenever he passed it. Unable to offer anything, Cael just watched. When Richard finally desisted a bit, he turned to Cael. “You’re not really okay with that, are you?”

Cael shrugged. “I’m not sure what a pack is. Or what not being accepted into it means.” 

This had happened a few times this past week. Richard was apparently a born wolf. Apparently that was a thing. His dad was a wolf so Richard and his brothers were also wolves since birth. He’d only ever known werewolfdom. As such, he often said things or described things in such a way that assumed Cael knew what he was talking about. They actually had to google a few wolf or cat concepts because Richard could not find the human words to describe what he was talking about. 

(“Pissing? You mean pissing?”

“No! It’s marking! You’re staking a claim! Making the land yours. It’s ownership and companionship at once.”

“It’s piss on a rock, dude.”)

Now that he thought about it, a pack made sense. They were talking about wolves. For the most part anyway. And wolves do travel in packs. He wasn’t sure about cats though. Do cats have … prides? 

“It means you’re homeless,” Richard continued.

“A wolf, or a cat,” he allowed, waving to indicate Cael's special circumstances, “belongs to a pack the same way he belongs to the land. Its a relationship. A bond. Without it, you go mad. Lose track of yourself. Packless animals go feral.”

Richard shuddered at some memory. “And that is hell you don't want anything to do with. This past week will seem like a vacation in Hawaii by comparison.”

Cael's few memories of losing himself to the animal, of not understanding Richard's words as he tried to bring him back, were scary enough. To be a human mind trapped in a wild animal, and not knowing it? Cael was suddenly interested in having a pack if it meant keeping away from that awfulness.

“Okay, then if the Gallaghers don't want me, is there another pack I can join?” Cael knew that Richard wasn't from here originally. Clearly, if pack membership was mandatory, then it follows that he was a member of this pack after switching from whatever one he had before. So, joining a different pack after this cluster fuck is possible.

“Joining other packs is tricky. All pack negotiations are tricky. And the Gallaghers are bound to you.” Richard began pacing again.

“The bond an alpha forms with a newly turned wolf is....” he trailed off, looking for the right words.

“Connection?” Cael supplied. He'd been hearing about bonds all week. Mostly with the land and the moon. He figured it was a born wolf thing. Or at least not a cat thing.

He wondered if there were any all-cat packs he could join. That would mean moving though. He wondered what he'd tell everyone.

“Yes, connection, but its more than that. It's belonging. Its obligation.” Richard raised his eyes to the ceiling. “This is exactly why we're not supposed to turn humans.”

He shook his head and muttered a bit more about the Gallaghers but it clearly wasn't meant for Cael so he simply waited.

Finally, Richard sighed and looked at Cael. “We can petition for them to keep you. There's a council. You have rights.”

Cael paused before answering. “Are... Are you allowed to tell me that?”

He wasn't sure what the rules were, but he was sure that if arguing or disagreeing with Gallagher was an option, Richard would have done it by now.

Richard shook his head at Cael. The two were silent as Cael weighed his options.

“I don't actually want to be in whatever pack that asshole is in. So fighting my way in isn't my first choice. If its at all possible to join a different one, that'd be great. Is it possible?” he added hesitantly. He really knew far too little about how were- things were done.

Richard sighed and rubbed his head. “Yeah, it is possible. Alpha Gallagher won't let me help you unless I do it by lying, which will make the whole thing harder.”

He looked at Cael, then nodded to himself. “Yeah, it's possible.”

Cael nodded too. “Is there... Can I help?”

Richard waved him off. “Naw, I have some phone calls to make. But we will be leaving town soon. So, I recommend packing your shit and quitting your job.”

And with that he was off in the direction of his office. Cael wandered back into the room he was borrowing. If he was going to pack up his apartment, he needed more than the cutoff boy shorts. He was disconcerted with the ease in which he was ordered to close out the life he had cultivated in Laramie these past few years. He understood the situation, but the absent minded wave of the hand dismissing him to pack up his life for moving god knows where left Cael feeling hollow.

Again, he put that feeling away and got on with the task.

He pulled out the only other pair of pants he had access to which was the dirty sweats he had worn for the past three days. Better that then what he currently had. There'd be more pants once he got to his apartment. He changed quickly, tidied up the little space in the event he wasn't back soon and slipped into a pair of too small slides that Richard had lent him.

He was tapping on the office door within minutes of originally being dismissed. Richard was digging around in a box of books and looked up at the knock.

“I'm gonna need a ride to my place,” Cael affected nonchalance at the situation.

“The key's on the hook. Fill her up with gas before you come back.” He went back to digging in the box.

Cael lingered a moment. He didn't have his wallet or house keys on him. Both, and his phone, were absent when he was in the compound, so he suspected getting into his apartment would be interesting, but that once he did, he'd find what he needed to buy gas.

He had been putting away the worry about not having shown up for work or his girlfriend or parents' worry all week. He would have the opportunity to check his phone for those texts when he got back too. So, he didn't actually need anything from Richard. But still, he loitered.

After a bit, Richard found what he was looking for, a battered address book with pages falling out. He moved to the desk and started rifling through it. When he landed on the page he was looking for he reached for his cell, finally noticing Cael still standing there.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Is it because I'm different?” Cael wasn't sure where that question came from.

“Is what because you're different?”

“That they didn't accept me?”

Replaying that night in his mind was awful and uncomfortable. But everything seemed fine, or as fine as they could have been for him. Anthony and his buddies told each other jokes and funny stories outside the garage. He'd hear their voices occasionally, laughing or talking about this or that. At the time, he thought it was torment. To be so sick and in so much pain and for people not even six feet away to do anything.

Now though, he realized they were watching over him because he was changing. They didn't get involved the way Richard did, but that may have been because it was so early in the process. They acted like everything was fairly normal, until the next morning at least.

At some point in the early hours of dawn, the tone of their voices shifted suddenly. He remembered the sudden urgency. How the door was flung open in the predawn hours and suddenly many people were coming to check on him then hurriedly leave again. This went on for some time, then the arguing, then the truck ride to Richard's.

It is possible Mr. Gallagher didn't want a newly turned were- in his pack just because Anthony bit someone. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that something went wrong. Something went wrong when he was changing.

Richard's sad nod at his question confirmed this suspicion.

He didn't want to be in the Gallagher pack. The Gallaghers were known in town and he had never had any particular fondness for the loud members of the compound that rested outside city limits. He'd heard gossip from folks speculating that it was some kind of cult. And he definitely hated Anthony for doing this to him. So it wasn't that he minded being rejected. It was the why of it.

During the training this past week, Cael came to know that he was different. Richard, as a wolf, used words and ideas that were for wolves. And when he mentioned other weres, it was always werewolves. Being a cat made him different, he just wasn't sure he liked the idea of being treated less-than simply because of that.

For one thing, he had no control over the shift. He was bitten, then a cat grew out of him. And he had equal say over both those parts. Which was none. So the Gallaghers rejecting him for a state of being they were responsible for was just shitty.

For another thing though, his cat was amazing. He knew he may be biased because it was his, but the one not fucked up part about this whole week has been the cat. Cael's cat was the shit, if he did say so himself.

She was a sleek black jaguar. Her smooth fur was black like his hair. She even had rich green eyes like he did. She was him, in feline form.

He could feel her muscles rolling whenever he was in full shift and walking around. Looking through her eyes, he only saw possibilities. He can scent things on the wind and everything just felt so good. He'd flop over onto the ground and just roll in the dirt before realizing what he was doing because the ground on her fur was just the right kind of gravelly dirty that she needed.

Richard would consistently rush him back into the half-human form of the beta shift before too long to prevent him from getting too comfortable in the fur. Which was something he knew to be wary of, losing his mind and all that, but he could also see the appeal.

So for someone to hate him, simply because of her? That hit him in a way that he had trouble putting away.

Richard's look was a forlorn one. Like he'd change the situation if he could.

Cael nodded. He stood up straighter. “I'll pack up my shit. But if you could find an all-cat pack, maybe that'd make things easier.”

Richard cocked his head in confusion. “An all-cat pack?”

“Yeah. I mean, if that's a thing.”

“Yeah. It is. Not a common thing. But I can look into it. If being around other cats is important to you.” Richard was speaking slowly here, as if to measure if being around other cats was something Cael truly wanted.

“Well, yeah. I should be around others who are different like me. Right?” He wasn't sure when it had happened, but Cael got the distinct impression that he lost Richard along the way. If there's cat prejudice, then safety in cat numbers would make sense. Cael didn't even really care where, as long as his jaguar was safe and happy.

Richard was looking at him in disbelief, mouth gaping open and phone forgotten in his hands. Cael wasn't sure what was amiss and it took Richard a moment of closing and opening his mouth a few times before he was able to regroup. Setting aside his address book he walked around the desk and sat at the edge of it. His posture had the energy of someone starting a serious conversation.

“Cael, being a cat isn't what makes you different.” He looked earnestly at the younger man, willing him to understand. But Cael didn't. He shifted his weight onto his other leg, racking his brain. But he could only come up with were- and cat. He had no idea what else it could be.

“Is it because I'm Methodist?” Richard laughed in surprise. But the moment wasn't funny so the laugh died as quickly as it erupted. He looked at Cael again and visibly braced himself for what he said next.

“Cael, you're an omega.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She would cause herself some kind of measurable harm then watch in fascination as her skin knit closed right in front of her eyes. Small scratches and scrapes would remedy themselves pretty quickly while larger wounds took more time and tended to leave her wiped afterwards. She found that food and sleep helped her with the healing wounds. But eventually, she had to conclude that she had super healing as well as super fur growing abilities.
> 
> -Super healing for the win! Up high!- She held her hand up towards the coyote in their shared mind space. He turned away and took over the body from her to keep moving forward on their trek. -Okay buddy, I'll get ya next time!-

The moon was full again. Amy could feel the thrum of the earth under her feet and the itching under her skin. She breathed in deep, taking in the smell of pine needles and dirt and allowing the breath to expand in her lungs, puffing out of her chest. These past few months, Amy had gotten used to her own solitude. And her … condition.

She tried playing around with the label for her “condition” to see if it fit. Hollywood did their best to teach her about werewolves.

_Thank god, imagine if I was going through this without any guide at all _she thought to herself ironically_._

And though not all of what she knew to be true about movie werewolves seems to match up perfectly with her situation, she went ahead and adopted the term anyway.

_I'm a werewolf._

The coyote turned in their shared mind space and snarled at her, the strongest reaction she's elicited from him yet.

_Whoa there. Sorry. _

He turned back away. 

_Was that... speciest? _Lord knows she didn't want to accidentally use an offensive term. 

He continued to ignore her per usual. He often would just putter on with his canine business when she tried to get information from him. Rather useless in the information department, her coyote. She noted his ears flicking around, fixating on various sounds. His fluffy tail hanging behind him, swaying with the motion of his body.

_Oh,_ she realized her error. Tentatively she tried, _I'm a werecoyote. _

The coyote flicked his ears in acknowledgment but otherwise continued. Which was as much of a ringing endorsement as one can get from him. 

_Werecoyote it is._

Mostly, Amy had just been heading west. Avoiding humans, eating when she needed to, sleeping during the hot parts of the day, and moving on. It reminded her of when she was living in the desert as a coyote in terms of how simply existing was. Only, this time, she had her human mind along for the ride. Which had its benefits as well as its drawbacks.

Mostly, she ended up trying to converse with the coyote.

She even got into cheering him on from their mind space as he ran around and competently kept them fed and safe. _You go, dude! You kill the shit out of that rabbit!_

He didn't really respond to her moral support, and he would still huff at her in annoyance when she used his body wrong, but over time they had gotten better and better at working together.

It did seem strange to refer to this being in her mind as _the coyote_, or more often simply _him_, but he didn't really seem to engender naming to her. Not only did he seem entirely wild, and therefore counter to having a human personality, but the few attempts she made at naming her companion went unsatisfyingly awry.

_Fluffy?_

The coyote continued trotting and sniffing at this and that.

_Wile E. Coyote?_

It paused to sniff more deeply at rock that was marked several weeks ago by a fox. 

_Sniffy McGee?_

He snuffed once more then moved on. 

_-sigh- How about “hey you”?_

He trotted around a sage bush and started loping off towards an outcropping of boulders. 

_You don't really answer to me do you?_

Finally, he turned to her in their shared mind space, huffed once, then refocused back on his trek.

_You're like, the worst brain-roommate ever._

She reconsidered that assessment later when the coyote got them out of a snarling fight with the pack of foxes on whose territory they had encroached, like the bad-ass he was. Having her human mind during this meant she could appreciate his badassery better, but it was occasionally tense for her, navigating the presence of the animal in her mind. Or even coming to terms with how he operated. For months it has just been the two of them. They were trapped together in their shared mind, with only the outside environment as distraction from each other's company. She vented it as well as she could with her running commentary, but in the end he wasn't human company.

And given how direct and animalistic the coyote is, was the truth of what happened at the trailer. When she thought back to that night at Erika's, to the memory of the coyote slashing through the humans, the same way he matter-of-factually took care of the foxes, caused her to cringe in discomfort and guilt. Rationally, she knew those men were there to hurt her and the coyote kept her safe. But their blood was on her hands. Literally.

The same as Erika's blood.

The fact that the coyote seemed to not be wired for guilt or reflection caused her some concern too. _Duh, he's an animal, _would come up for her many times during those moments when she wrestled alone with guilt over actions they were both present for. She still didn't have an answer for any of that, and deep down she knew that was part of why she has been avoiding people. She simply struggled with trusting herself around others.

And staying isolated wasn't helping her feel better about her condition. The longer she was in the wild, the more strange things she encountered about herself.

One day she had been working on pouncing. Jumping up and then straight down to surprise the rodents below the surface of the earth. The coyote was excellent at it, because of course he was. But she wanted to try it and the two were getting better at cohabiting in their multiple forms. She had wandered over to a rocky ledge and attempted to pounce straight down. She ended up miscalculating somehow and tore up her coyote's leg on the jagged edge of a boulder. At first she yipped at the searing pain. Then when her coyote leaned in to start licking the wound clean, she noticed it wasn't as big as she thought. After some concerted grooming, she noticed it to be even smaller still. Then when she checked on it a few minutes later, it was knit closed and scabbed over. 

Her first thought was, _magic desert has magic boulders?!_

She road tested this a few more times, especially in the other forms. She would cause herself some kind of measurable harm then watch in fascination as her skin knit closed right in front of her eyes. Small scratches and scrapes would remedy themselves pretty quickly while larger wounds took more time and tended to leave her wiped afterwards. She found that food and sleep helped her with the healing wounds. But eventually, she had to conclude that she had super healing as well as super fur growing abilities.

_Super healing for the win! Up high! _She held her hand up towards the coyote in their shared mind space. He turned away and took over the body from her to keep moving forward on their trek. _Okay buddy, I'll get ya next time!_

Another strange instance was during one of the full moons. She had been traveling in her monster shift, so named because of the sheer height and bulk she had while in this form. She was a hulking beast in this form, but also much more emotional and she felt the pull of the moon much more strongly. She felt the full moon regardless now, but in her monster shift, she could feel a rope tugging sensation to the moon. Like a toddler tugging at her, asking her to come play. During this particular full moon, she let the monster shift and the moon freedom to do what they wanted.

She ended up with some seriously trippy visions.

First, while walking under the playful moon's glow, she made all kinds of new realizations about her past life. She was filled with a sense of disappointment and sympathy about her parents as she understood, for the first time, how very alike her parents she and Daniel were. She also remembered some memories from high school when Daniel cried and was insecure with her that she had completely forgotten about. It was as though the moon was combing her mind for facts and stringing them together differently than she ever had. As though the moon was saying “Here, look at it this way.”

Then, she saw the tree. It was a giant, weathered old tree, its leaves brown and droopy. She wept when she saw the tree, grieving for its sadness. She knew, somehow, that the tree was sick. Very sick. And no one was helping it. Then the moon showed her the coyote, pacing the desert floor, agitated and restless. From the distance she was experiencing this from, she only felt a patient empathy for herself. As though she were watching a child throwing a tantrum about being denied sweets before dinner. When the thoughts cleared and she got up again, she felt fully rested in a way that sleep never offered.

All in all, it was trippy. She now had recurring dreams about that tree. And she had no idea why. Needless to say, she avoided her monster shift around the full moon now.

Though, while talking to herself, experiencing moon-induced trippy visions and superhealing were already quite strange, the strangest of which, would have to have been the three days she spent dry humping a fallen log about three weeks ago.

With time, the desert sand and boulders had faded into woods and evergreen. And during her trek, Amy's sexual desire was fairly non-existent. Between the overwhelming feelings of loss and trying to figure out her new normal, Amy had basically back-burnered her libido. Which is why it was so shocking for her to wake up one morning with a hard-on that would _not_ go away.

It was doubly shocking considering how, apart from all the other crazy she was getting acclimated to, Amy had agreed with herself to basically ignore the whole penis thing. Yes, she had a member swinging between her legs that she was hyper-aware of during her half-human form. Yes, she had noted that the thing was even bigger during her monster form, unbelievably so. Yes, she knew the coyote living in her mind was male. All these things were facts that Amy knew and accepted, yet she did not venture further on any of it. She managed to hunt and struggle for survival without being overly concerned about the junk she was sporting, thank you very much.

But all of what she was avoiding about this aspect of herself came screaming into the forefront when she woke up with a burning need to... fuck.

There was no other way to describe it.

As a woman, Amy had experienced the desire for sex before, but it was nothing like this. Before, she would crave the connection of intimacy. Or even the itch of a need for a climax. She'd even have the crass craving to be filled. This was not like any of that.

Amy wanted to _fuck_ something.

She was overheated and irritable, so at first, Amy thought she had gotten sick with a fever. Then she thought her coyote was having some kind of angry fit. But as the sun rose and her coyote continued circling her little clearing and snarling at the emptiness, she started to correctly identify that angry/horny feeling.

She tried to get on with her day like normal, pretending that it wasn't happening. She tried to get the coyote to focus on hunting but he'd just pace and whine. So she took the reigns and tried to focus on getting food. But not only was she not actually hungry, but the incessant urge was actually rather crippling. She even tried to switch over to human form in the hopes of leaving her penis behind, but her body refused to fold away into humanity. So she was stuck with fangs and an angry, swollen phallus that would not go away.

She thought she could ease the ache by -ahem- helping it along. That resulted in twenty minutes of her awkwardly pulling at her stiff member in half-human shift, too embarrassed by it to be trying to do it right. She'd occasionally nick herself with her clawed hands, which would cause a scratch to well up with blood, then instantly heal. This would effectively distract her in fascination each time, but only for a brief moment. Finally, her body reacted to the stimulation and she climaxed for a long moment, ejaculating outwards then being left boneless and drained in a way that was different for her.

_Oh my god, I can't move. Did I die? I might have died. _She observed the spunk that was all over her belly and on the ground. Her coyote gave it a good sniff. _Okay. __I__'m not dead. I just came. _

She flopped back on the ground with a gasp. It felt like she just drained her essence through her penis and she was entirely spent and useless for anything else. _No wonder why men turn into corpses after this. _

She compartmentalized her freakout about having spunk to go with her strange male member before it could get any traction (_Do I have semen? Can I get someone pregnant?) _because unfortunately, it was only a brief respite as her body amped up again and her member re-stiffened painfully quickly. 

_What the freaking hell?!? _

At this, she tried letting the coyote take over for whatever was happening to her, but all he did was rut against the ground and whine pathetically. She could tell that he was pining for someone to couple with and after he made a few interested sniffs in the air, she took back the reigns. 

_There is no way I am going to bang a wild animal. _ She didn't care what was happening to her, or what crazy bullshit she has already gone through. _Bestiality is not on the list of acceptable activities. _

This meant that she was left panting and sweating and grunting her way through orgasm after orgasm with no sustainable relief for endless days on end. She had panicking thoughts about being a broken werecoyote. Or if she wasn't actually a were- at all, but actually some kind of sex demon she'd never heard of before. She had decided at one point that the incessant urge was going to kill her.

_Death by horniness. The magic desert turned me into a coyote, only to kill me with this. _

By the middle of the second day, she resorted to using an age-smoothed fallen log to support her in this time of need, rutting against it in a mockery of dry-humping. 

_Get it? Dry humping?_ As she feverishly rutted against the dry log. The forest around her was busy with birdsong and the coyote only whined. _Okay, terrible-brain-roommate, there is no one else here. You have to laugh at my jokes. _

He only flattened his ears at her. 

When the fever finally broke and the horny haze lifted, she shook herself off and put that weirdness behind her the same way she put that coyote-cum-scented plot of land behind her.

Fantasizing about showers and leafy vegetables, and someday not having to worry about strange coyote biological functions, Amy continued west. The forest started to thin around her, making way for flat, snow-covered plains. Sniffing the breeze, she scented what lay before her. There had been four full moons since Erika's. With all that time, and no one else to talk to, nothing really to distract her from her feelings, she occasionally became inundated with old memories of Daniel or her parents, with some flashbacks of Erika thrown in for variety. This has lead to a few breakdowns, leaving her crying and heaving in the middle of walking, the coyote pacing back and forth restlessly in her mind.

He seemed to struggle when she was upset. Somehow, he knew there was a problem, but there was no identifiable threat for him to address, so he'd just pace restlessly. His impotent availability to her in those moments became comforting in its own way.

Multiple meltdowns has also lead to her being stronger against the siren call of those old feelings. Now, whenever those old wounds open up again, they don't seem as dire. She can much more easily switch her attention back to the coyote or the moon. It doesn't make anything better really. Those memories are still there and they're still based on shitty experiences she's actually had, but she feels more solid in herself now. She's still a former-human wandering lost in the woods. But the ache is no longer so debilitating and that feeling of connection to the coyote or to the moon centers her. She simply doesn't hate herself as much anymore.

She hadn't forgiven herself for what had happened to Erika. There could be no forgiveness for her for what happened to Erika. She knew that. Nor would there be forgiveness for running away like a coward after the fact. But four months of heading west with four months of being lost in the desert before that added up to eight months since that last night she left work.

It was time. Amy had no idea what it was time for . But she knew it was time to get to it.

She was far enough out into the forest that it took a few days for her to get to anything resembling civilization. She followed her nose to the smell of humans which brought her to a very small town. On the other side of which, were some farms that were sleeping throughout the winter. All told, the number of residents had to be fewer than 200. Though there was a smattering of dirtied, brown slush piles blanketing the whole town, muffling both noise and smell, the whole town was still a chaotic symphony of aromas. She could smell the brown liquor of the bar on the end of the street, the baking smell of pastries from three different houses, and the rotisserie smell of roasting meat that made her drool from five other houses. Despite how small the town was, the smell of so many people living on top of each other after so much time in the crisp mountain air was quite an adjustment.

Amy paced around the town a few times, getting the shape and scope of the place before deciding on how to engage. The town's welcome sign said “McGill, NV.” 

_Well, _Amy sighed, _at least its not Utah._

It seemed like a sleepy, aged town. She stayed in her coyote form during her inspection and she spent several hours pacing back and forth, sniffing where the road leads in and out before she realized she was being over cautious due to fear. The last time she hung out with humans hadn't exactly gone well. She shook her head at herself then retreated back a mile or so, just to get her bearings.

She knew she had to do this. She had no idea how she knew, or what it was she was supposed to be doing. But she did know, the same way she knew where the moon was in the sky, that whatever _it_ was started here.

Though the moon was a tricky bitch, Amy felt certain she'd never actually lead her astray. She looked over the shared mind space at the coyote. He was curled around himself but looked up at her long enough to yawn. So, she huffed at herself and got on with it.

She paced around the perimeter once more as a coyote, trying to figure out how to approach it, before catching a specific strange smell. It seemed oddly familiar and foreign at the same time. As she moved towards it, she found herself pulled to a one-story ranch house on the plains side of the town.

As she followed her nose, she didn't notice herself shifting, distracted by her target as she was. It was a complicated smell. Amy could smell fresh cigarette smoke, the stale cigarette smell that gets trapped in clothes over time, fresh cut daisies, some kind of stew and something animalistic. The animal undertone was fainter than the other notes but it was driving her insane. It was not like the animals she had been involved with the past few months, or the various cat and dog smells she could souse out from the other houses. This animal smell was more akin to the odor she left behind her whenever she vacated a resting place.

She was moving forward, sniffing and mindlessly scenting the air before she connected the dots that this could be the smell of another were-creature. She was hunched over in her not-quite-bipedal/monster state as she trespassed directly into someone's yard trying to catch the elusive scent.

“Oh!” Amy looked up suddenly at the startled exclamation. Before her, on the porch of the house she had been approaching, was an older woman. Her long gray hair hung loosely, spilling past her shoulders. She had an oversized, aged blue cardigan that was steeped in years of cigarette smoke draped around her shoulders. Holey sweats and a pair of ratty slippers capped off her sleep rumpled look. She was huddled into herself in the chill and had a forgotten cigarette burning in her hand. 

Leaning forward with her snout Amy did a few experimental sniffs. Yep. Cigarettes, daisies, beef stew and... that vague animal feeling. Amy sniffed a couple more times before realizing the animal scent was a transfer smell. This woman wasn't a were- herself, but she had, at one point, been in contact with one. Amy's eyes burned. That's when she suddenly remembered herself. 

Taking stock of herself and how fully into this woman's yard she had gotten, she realized she was full-on in her hulking monster shift. And with the burning feeling in her eyes, she was certain they were quite red right now.

_Way to make an impression, Kemp, _she thought wryly to herself. Ashamed at how quickly she lost control (_I've been here for five minutes!_) she tried to slowly back away from the mess she had made.

“Hold on,” the older woman cocked her head. “Is that an alpha-shift?”

_...what?_


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two stared at each other for a moment. Amy in her monster shift, frozen at being caught out. And the older woman on her porch. The crisp air that hung in between them was chilling them both, as evidenced by the little clouds of air they each breathed as they stood there measuring each other. 
> 
> Well, she's not freaking out and running away. With an internal shrug, Amy decided to end the standoff the one way she had access to. As she shifted back to full human, her stance straightened up as her spine lost its abnormal curve, though she lost height as her bulk melted away. Her fangs and claws pulled back in and her face melted in reverse as her lengthened, grotesque features shifted back into a normal human face. Her normal human face. She blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to how dim everything appeared compared to before. The woman watched her wide eyed but otherwise made no response. 

The two stared at each other for a moment. Amy in her monster shift, frozen at being caught out. And the older woman on her porch. The crisp air that hung in between them was chilling them both, as evidenced by the little clouds of air they each breathed as they stood there measuring each other. 

_Well, she's not freaking out and running away. _With an internal shrug, Amy decided to end the standoff the one way she had access to. As she shifted back to full human, her stance straightened up as her spine lost its abnormal curve, though she lost height as her bulk melted away. Her fangs and claws pulled back in and her face melted in reverse as her lengthened, grotesque features shifted back into a normal human face. Her normal human face. She blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to how dim everything appeared compared to before. The woman watched her wide eyed but otherwise made no response. 

Glancing down quickly to assess the damage, Amy noted that she was quite nude. Again. Apparently, four months was too long to hope for borrowed sweats to last in the wild. She noted, with some slight shock, that she had foregone the human urge of modesty enough that she forgot even to keep track of her clothes. 

_I guess I'm rocking this then. _ She planted her feet and stood tall, looking directly at the woman as though to dare her to say something. The woman brought the cigarette in her hand to her lips and took a drag. The extensive amount of ash that had collected on the end while it lay forgotten in her hand flaked off comically on the inhale. Amy could smell the ash and smoke as though it were directly under her nose.

_Ugh, don't tell me I kept the sensitive nose. I'm not sure I can handle everyone's BO in technicolor. _

She flared her nostrils to try to get something else, the way she would have in one of her other shifts and was surprised to still get that strange smell of daisy and beef stew from the woman. It was muted and dull, compared to before, but still there and it cloyed at her nose under the cigarette stink. That, too, was dimmed again in her human nose. The layers of smoke smell she had access to before and the complicated symphony of the entire tone pressing on her nose were lost to Amy in the shift. _Thank god_, she sighed. 

Trying to remind herself why she was standing goose-fleshed and shivering in the crunchy snow of this woman's house, Amy took another sniff trying to find that strange animal smell that lured her here. The woman flicked her cigarette again and took another drag, burning close to the filter. Amy watched her as she leisurely finished that hit, then ground out the butt in a coffee can resting on the ground at her feet. The woman stood up, considered Amy, then waved her in as she stepped towards the door to the house.

Amy had a brief moment of panic. Remembering the last time someone invited her into her home caused her to squik.

The coyote looked at her from the corner in their mind space. He was standing and agitated. Apparently, he was curious about the smell too.

_I can't kill her. Okay? _We _can't kill her._ She emphasized the we in an attempt to get some kind of reaction from him. But he cocked his head and wagged his tail once. Then he huffed at her in an obvious _get going _way.

Amy shivered, really feeling the cold air for the first time in months. She looked back at the sky behind her. The full moon hung there, quiet and pressing. She narrowed her eyes at the orb.

_That bitch never says anything to help, but she sits there in judgment. _Amy shook her head and followed after the older woman. 

When she stepped in, Amy was assaulted first with the rank smell of cat, then with the sight of so much stuff. There were stacks of boxes sitting behind the couch and, judging by the layer of dust on them, were a permanent fixture in the living room. There were stacks of papers and a cascading pile of what only can be described as junk mail on the side table. There were stacks of paperback books in front of and on top of an aged TV that was blaring Fox news. There was cat nip and litter tracked all over the carpet and a slim tabby darted out from under the woman's feet as she trekked through the house. Turning back to Amy she seemed to pause and reconsider before backtracking back to a closet. She rifled through it a moment before pulling out a few faded pink towels. 

“You're gonna want a shower, I reckon.”

The woman handed off the towels then looked Amy up and down before disappearing off down the hallway. Amy would have followed but the passage was narrow due to an empty bookcase that sat with its front side facing the wall cramping the space. Amy held the towels loosely in hand and contemplated the gray long haired cat that was sprawled in between piles of clothes on the couch, blinking lazily at her. The woman returned to the living room. She was still hunched in on herself, carrying a pile of clothes awkwardly in one hand with her arms still crossed. This she offered to Amy as well. Then she stood back.

Amy stood there for a moment, with the towels and clothes in hand but no further instruction was forthcoming. _This lady may have worse social skills than the coyote-girl. _

“I'm Amy,” she ventured. 

The woman startled and nodded. “I'm Sharon. Hi.”

“Hi.”

The two stood there a beat more. Amy was still shivering in her body's attempt to bring up her temperature and Sharon seemed rather unperturbed by the situation. Amy wasn't sure what that said about the woman.

“You're here because of my brother.” The woman volunteered. She loosened her hand to wave her cardigan revealing a faded Minions t-shirt.

“I was wearing this when I visited his pack last month,” she explained, gripping the cardigan in question. “You was sniffing my brother's smell.”

Amy nodded, excited. “Yes! Your brother! He's...” Amy trailed off, unsure how to complete that sentence.

But no matter, the woman was nodding. “Yep. Not an alpha like you, but yeah.”

Alpha.

Something about the word was ringing a bell for Amy.

“Yeah, you mentioned an alpha-shift?” Amy made the statement into a question to express that the word was confusing to her. She stepped forward in excitement. At last, someone who may be able to answer some questions for her.

Sharon nodded. “Yeah, that's what that was, right? Outside? My brother's Alpha tried for his shift back in the day, but...” She shrugged her to suggest that things didn't work out. “Don't think he knew anyone who'd done it before.”

All of what Sharon was saying seemed like something Amy should know about, but unfortunately, she didn't. She was about to start asking questions when Sharon looked her up and down again and cut in with “But what if you was showered first? And maybe wearing some clothes, huh?”

She turned abruptly away and started heading out of the living room. Amy made to follow before Sharon caught her at it and tsked.

“No, the show-er.” She enunciated slowly, as though Amy was dense.

Amy nodded. “And that would be...?” she held out the towel to help emphasize her point.

“Oh!” Sharon seemed surprised that Amy did not know the layout of her house.

Without any other ado, she turned back the other way, down the cramped hallway she went before, motioning for Amy to follow. Amy stepped gingerly forward, wincing at what she was certain were the granules of kitty litter she could feel under her bare feet. On her path, she got a peek into the kitchen and saw that it was no better, being strewn with all sorts of dishes and mismatched pieces of wall art. Oddly enough, the walls were bare, but framed pictures and kitschy sayings on wood plaques were stacked in piles against the wall on the floor in the kitchen and hallway. Maneuvering around the poorly placed bookshelf she saw into a bedroom that was similarly overburdened with unidentifiable stacks of papers and boxes.

Sharon clearly struggled with letting things go.

Continuing on down the hallway, Sharon opened up the closed door there. She didn't step in, opting instead to flatten against the wall to let Amy pass by her. “It's been awhile since I cleaned in there, but let me know if the shower don't work or something,” and then she was off the way she came.

_Its been a while since she cleaned in there?! _Amy shuddered at what her imagination offered her, before tentatively stepping into the dark room. She braced herself for the worst when she flicked on the lights.

The room was, in short, a surprise. A humble queen sized bed and its oak frame dominated the space. Its comforter was a pale blue with matching pale blue pillows. The floor was clear and only a matching dresser and side table took up space. The curtains were drawn over the sealed windows and the air was stale and dusty. The room had obviously not been used in a long while.

Curiosity took over and Amy moved toward the top of the bed frame that was shaped into shelves above where the pillows rested. There were dusty books and framed pictures resting in a haphazard fashion. A couple John Grisham books and a masculine pair of wire rimmed glasses sat towards one side of the bed.

The pictures showed a much younger Sharon with sandy blonde hair smiling happily with the obvious owner of the glasses, a buck-toothed jovial man. One picture was of the two of them in front of a house, another of the two of them at the beach, and the third was in front of a church, complete with Sharon in a wedding dress. The shelf on the other side of the bed was devoid of any personal objects and a cursory inspection of the closet and dresser revealed only men's clothing with gaping spaces where Sharon's clothes must have gone once upon a time.

The whole room had an abandoned feel to it. As though she had stepped into a mausoleum. Sharon's love for her late husband, and her grief at his loss, was written all over this dust covered room. Tears pricked at Amy's eyes. She took a breath and tried to gather herself.

Then she looked down at herself and laughed. _Girl! You are still naked!! Jeez!_

She still clutched the towels and clothes in her hands and went towards the en-suite bathroom she first noticed during her tour of the room. She went in and found a similar state of abandonment here as well what with the dust and rust stains being left ignored for so long. She flipped the faucet in the sink on as well as the one in the shower, just letting water run through the rusty pipes while she assessed the soap and shampoo situation. Some digging through the shower and in the drawers below the sink resulted in a fresh bar of Irish Spring and a half empty bottle of Head and Shoulders of indeterminate age. She also found a crusty tube of Colgate, though some squishing showed it had potential.

An unopened blue toothbrush and some floss proved to be the biggest boon. She actually did a celebratory dance at that find. Then she brushed and flossed before her shower, and again after, just to delight in the joyful feeling of a clean mouth.

She even did some experimenting in front of the mirror on the second go-around, shifting between her various shifts to see if her flossing needs shifted too. It appeared that cleaning her teeth in one shift transferred to the other shifts, which made sense. 

Finally, she was freshly showered and squeaky clean with little reason to keep stalling. She grimaced while donning the cigarette stanked clothes which were a loose pair of gray drawstring pants and a t-shirt from Las Vegas.

Then, having declared herself human again, she had no other excuses to stall. She gave herself and the coyote the same pep talk as before.

_We aren't going to kill her. _The coyote re-shifted his weight on his haunches in the excited way that dogs have. He was still interested in the smell.

Sighing, she headed back out into the living room.

Her entrance in the hallway sent the tabby racing out and away again. She heard cluttering in the kitchen so she headed in that direction, finding Sharon clearing out space on an old chrome and red dining room table.

She had made hot dogs and macaroni and cheese which bothered Amy for a moment. She tried to make sense of why, while her tummy grumbled its awareness of warm food within striking distance. She sniffed appreciatively and she moved to sit when Sharon beckoned her too. The cracked vinyl chair scraped at her thighs when she sat.

She realized as she was sniffing that she still smelled beef stew and daisies. But there was no beef stew to be found. She also noticed a distinct lack of daisies now that she thought about it. She gave it another whiff but found that stew and daisy smell to still be present, especially when Sharon leaned over her to dish out a portion for her. Shaking her head she tucked into the food with gusto. Sharon watched Amy for a moment before starting in on her own plate. 

The two ate in silence. It wasn't exactly companionable, but Amy was too hungry to try to rectify it. Sharon made do with making tutting noises at the cats as they meandered curiously in and out. Amy saw the tabby and the gray one from before but guessed that there were more. As she went for a third helping, Sharon brought out a bag of chips as well as a glass of milk to add to Amy's meal. She munched happily and smiled her thanks. Sharon nodded and graciously smiled in return. When she finally felt full, Amy sat back in her chair with an ominous squeak. 

“So, what is an alpha-shift?” she asked, bringing back the conversation from before. 

Sharon looked surprised. “Isn't that what you were in? When you came?” She waved her arm vaguely above her head to suggest height.

That didn't really answer the question Amy was going for. “Okay, lets back up. What does alpha mean? You mentioned that someone your brother knew was an alpha.”

Sharon's eyebrows shot to her hairline. If she looked surprised before then she was positively flabbergasted at this. 

“Its... you're... you should....” Sharon started fidgeting in her chair. “Do you really not know?”

She looked imploringly at Amy who could only shake her head.

“What about betas?” Amy shook her head again.

She continued as though something ought to jog Amy's memory, her wide eyes imploring Amy to know something. “Or omegas?”

Something niggled at Amy again, but she still had no idea about any of this, so she kept mutely shaking her head.

“Oh, wow. Okay.” She sounded resigned and stood up from the table and started towards the living room.

Amy moved to follow feeling a strange echo of disappointment. Not that she felt disappointment at all. But she realized that, in the recent past, Amy would have felt like she was disappointing Sharon in this situation. Amy would have felt guilty for not knowing something Sharon thought she should know. But she didn't. Instead, there was a strange echo of the feeling that _wasn't _there. She stopped for a moment trying to souse out if she _should _feel that disappointed/guilty feeling.

_Nope,_ she decided. Feeling this emotion's absence actually caused her to walk taller as she entered the living room.

Sharon sat down in a champagne-colored 70's era arm chair that must have been her customary seat if the piles neatly arranged around her are any indication. She nodded at the couch for Amy to sit as well. The spot where the gray cat previously rested was vacated so Amy lowered herself down.

Sharon looked at her with pity in her eyes that Amy didn't understand, but that absence of guilt was still there so Amy raised her chin and waited the older woman out.

“If you don't know what an alpha is, that means yours didn't teach it to you?” Sharon started with what Amy could only hope was a well-intentioned tone of voice rather then the condescension that Amy read it as.

“I guess not,” she shrugged off guessing at the implications of what Sharon was saying. “So, why don't you teach it to me,” she added with a reigned in sense of impatience.

Sharon shook her head and reached into the cushion of her seat and pulled out a little bottle of wild turkey.

_Now, that's an idea._

Amy surreptitiously ran her hand in the creases of her own cushion but pulled out a yellow crayon and some nail clippers before calling it a lost cause.

Once Sharon had taken what courage was offered to her in that bottle she explained in sudden starts and stops. Her older brother, Gareth, was road tripping through California in the 80's when he befriended a werewolf. To hear Sharon tell it, you'd think the brother was shocked and appalled about the existence of werewolves. But Amy gathered from her exclamations that Sharon was sharing her own shock and appall that still lingered, even after forty years. Amy felt validated in this fact after the older woman shared that her brother asked to be bitten. Reading between the lines, it seems likely the brother fell in love with his werewolf friend's sister and wanted to be with her. Sharon had a different theory though.

“Men will take any excuse to be big and strong. He was always a runt of a man, you know? So, to be bitten and have extra strength and muscles without doing nuthin' to earn it? Of course, he signed up.”

“So, werewolves are bitten? That's how they turn?” Amy asked while idly rubbing her hand over her neck.

“The turned ones, yeah. Like Gareth. And a rough first month it was, from what I hear, becoming a wolf.” Amy shuddered in memory.

_Yes, rough is one word for it. _

“His friend though, he was born a wolf. Now, those,” at this she leaned back comfortably in her chair and looked directly at Amy, “those folks who've been wolves their whole life, you can tell they're different. Just from looking at them.”

She stared off into the middle distance a moment as she reminisced with herself. Amy looked around the living room and wondered how often this lonely old woman did that by herself.

“Is that what alpha means? To be a born wolf? Was his friend an alpha?” Amy wasn't uninterested in this backstory. Far from it. But she desperately wanted to learn about the word that was niggling at her. 

Sharon's eyes slid back over to her. “Yeah, he was alpha but it has nothing to do with being a born wolf.” Her eyes slid away again, but this time in consideration. She seesawed her head a few times as she weighed it mentally,

“I guess, its a bit like gender?” She implied skepticism at her own statement by lifting her tone at the end.

Her wandering eyes landed back on Amy. “You're the first woman alpha I ever met. But I guess anything's possible,” she shrugged.

[Amy couldn't move her arms. The ceiling was high above her and industrial, like a warehouse. She tried to shake off grogginess.]

“I still don't understand. What is it?” Amy persisted, leaning forward as though to urge the woman to speak.

“Okay, there's three types of werewolves. I guess. Alpha, beta and omega.” Gesturing in Amy's direction, “you're an alpha cuz your eyes glow red. All alphas have that. The others' glow gold. But I forget which. It's freaky to see a whole pack light up their eyes.” Sharon nodded at this as though Amy was going to argue with her. 

“Alphas tend to be in charge. There is the leader of the pack, The Alpha” she enunciated here to specify importance, like it was a title, “and then there's regular alphas in the pack. Even regular alphas get their say so over betas and omegas. Gareth is beta. He talks about being in the middle of the totem pole. Omegas have less power than the others, I guess? I know omegas are important too, but in a different way.” Sharon scrunched up her eyebrows as though to remember why they were important, but ultimately forgetting. Amy realized that the wild turkey she had been nursing this whole time is likely kicking in. 

Sharon eventually gave up on trying to remember. “You know, I don't know enough about it, but its a pretty big deal in the pack for werewolves.”

[There was shouting off to her side. Amy turned to try to make out the men that were arguing, squinting at the bright daylight. Something was wrong but she was struggling with putting her finger on what.]

Shaking off the vague sense of worry, Amy focused on the pieces she could follow. “You keep saying pack.”

Sharon's eyes brightened up. “Yep, that's like a werewolf family. Born wolves, turned wolves, all of them, they always belong to a pack. No one gets left behind.”

At this, Sharon just looked wistful. Then her pitying eyes returned. “Where's your pack?”

[She felt the van stop and the sound of a car door opening then van door sliding open to reveal a bearded face. “**Sleep now.”**]

“I don't have anthing,” Amy stiffened in anger.

Sharon shook her head, “you not a born wolf? Who was orphaned?”

Thinking of her parents, of how painfully _normal _they are, Amy swallowed and shook her head.

“So, you were bitten then?”

Amy slid the collar of her shirt down, revealing the scar tissue on her neck. Trying to look down at her own neck awkwardly, Amy considered that patch of shiny pink flesh. _How strange that such a small patch of skin could end up dictating so much of my life._

She tried to remember the actual biting part of her attack, but there was so much lost to her from that time.

“Yeeeesh, that one is an angry bite. Gareth's is this tiny little thing. Your alpha musta been mad or soemthin'” Sharon was shaking her head in dismay. Amy bristled at the pity and she felt her coyote growl.

“Well, whoever bit ye is supposed to teach ye about the things,” she continued. Sharon's slur started to make itself known.

[“Let's head west. Find someplace for her out that a' way.”]

“It's like a rule or somethin'” she waved vaguely.

[“Her heart is beating like a rabbit's.”

“I know. Let's pull over so I can have her sleep again.”]

The voices she remembered in her memory came to her now. The way one of them boomed at her telling her to sleep. The way the other one sounded disgusted with her. She realized, in a way that felt like she already knew, but wasn't consciously aware of, that the people who took her and turned her had originally planned on keeping her but then dumped her. Because she failed to measure up the way they wanted?

_I _do _have a pack,_ she realized with budding anger. _They didn't want me._

[Daniel smirked in the way he does when he feels he won a fight.]

The coyote growled and paced.

“It's wrong for werewolves to live alone. For some reason.” Sharon stood up from her chair on unsteady legs and waving her hand dismissively about strange pack habits which nearly caused her to fall over. Amy leaped to her feet and held out hands to support her. Sharon was so much more frail under the cardigan than Amy realized. Once she was steady on her feet, she started forward again oblivious, to Amy's presence in front of her.

“Packs often take each other in, ye know. We'll find ye a pack tomorrow.” Amy moved aside to let her pass and Sharon waved her hand behind her as she wove towards the hallway, presumably to her room.

  
  


Amy had too much agitated energy to try to rest. She went into the kitchen to clean up the dinner mess. Due to how much Amy had eaten, there was little leftover to trash. 

Unfortunately, with how messy the kitchen was, washing the dinner dishes became washing the dishes that were stacked in the sink and cleaning up the spot on the counter that was used quickly turned into scrubbing down the whole counter and soon Amy found herself panting and sweating as she scrubbed the oven. When she caught herself about to clean the entire nightmare of a kitchen, she reigned herself in.

Which left her in the predicament of feeling tired from exertion, but still too agitated to rest.

Her coyote was still pacing in her mind. _Me too, bud. Me too._

She eventually went outside to get away from the stifling cat smell. Making her way to the edge of the back patio near Sharon's coffee can of butts, Amy sat down, relishing the chill.

_Only a few hours among people, well person, and already I miss the woods._

She looked up at the sky. _T__hat tricky bitch is gone I see, _she noted, looking up only to see smattering of stars among the clouds. 

She stayed a moment, breathing into the quiet. She lost track of time for a bit, but when she got up to go back into the house, she felt calmer.


	18. The Oakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She fiddled with the candy for a moment then pocketed it. She felt the Alpha's eyes on her.
> 
> “So, Winter. What brings you here today.” The Alpha had a way of speaking that made inquiries sound like statements. As though he were so commanding his voice could not lilt properly to actually ask a question. 
> 
> “I wanted to discuss my trip to Germany to study with the pack there.” She sat with her hands clenched in her lap. She tightened her grip on her own hand to help keep her voice steady. A useless endeavor since he can smell everything she felt anyway.
> 
> “Yes. I haven't heard from you one way or another. Alpha Krause is ready and willing of course, but I wasn't sure what your plans were.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly relaxed. 
> 
> “Yeah, about that...” 

The pack house rose big and menacing in front of her. She never realized before how much like a fortress the building actually was. Between pack meetings and tagging along with her dad on emissary business, Winter had practically grown up in this house. It was as familiar to her as her grandma's place. She usually took the blunt edifice for granted and didn't pay any heed to the six foot brick wall lining the perimeter. Usually. But today, she noticed them. And they loomed over her intimidatingly.

She sighed to herself for strength. This has been weighing on her for months and she was well past the point of procrastination. Either she needed to say something or just do what she was expected to. This waffling back and forth and not doing anything could not go on. Or so she told herself. But the looming building gave her second thoughts.

“Hey!” The sudden shout and thump against her car window scared her into jumping. Mason and his shit-eating grin stood on the other side of the door while she tried to catch her startled breath. She hustled out of the car and slammed a fist into his arm with all her might. 

“You scared me!” Not only did he not even react to the punch but he had the arrogant audacity to laugh too. 

“Hell, yeah I did!” Winter huffed and started to stomp away. He quickly stepped into pace with her. “Why were you just sitting in your car anyway? You smell worried about something.” 

Winter rolled her eyes. “You know that its rather nosy to just sniff into my feelings, don't you?” She asked haughtily. 

“You know that its automatic for wolves to smell your stinky human feels, don't you?” He replied dryly. It was an old debate between the two of them. He treated her like any other pack member, and she always felt the need to remind him just how human she was. His patiently genial smile in these arguments was at once infuriating and comforting.

Mason always struck her as someone who should have dimples. He didn't. But how readily he smiled, and how his smiles lit up his whole face seemed to demand dimples. Whenever someone talked to her about how unfair or capricious God was, Mason's absentee dimples always came to mind for her. At six foot and a billion inches, Mason towered over everyone and his frame was bulky with muscle. He wore his fiery red hair at shoulder length and looked every inch like the vikings from which he was descended. Except for how happy he always was, Mason could even be considered intimidating.

“Well, that would be why I was sitting in my car. Trying to get my stinky human feels under control before inflicting them upon your poor hapless wolfy nose.” 

“Well, consider your attempt a failure.” He said mock disappointed. She laughed. Mason just seemed to have that effect on her. By then they had walked through the mudroom of the house and deposited their coats into the hall closet. 

“I'll try harder next time,” she promised with faux seriousness. Mason surprised her with an actual serious countenance. 

“You don't have to do that at all.” He gazed down at her with furrowed brows. “What are you worried about?” 

Shock and fear could not begin to describe what Winter was feeling. To have Mason put her on the spot like this was something she did not prepare for. She had been over it and over it in her mind, how the Alpha was going to take Winter's request. It hadn't occurred to her consider Mason's response. She realized just now, that as much as she felt like she was abandoning and betraying the pack, it was even more so an abandonment and betrayal of Mason. After all, she'd be _his_ emissary.

She stood frozen without responding for a beat too long. “Winter? Why are you panicking? Are you okay?” 

She thought distantly how weird it was to see such concern on his normally smiling face.

“Yeah, no, I'm fine. Its, look, its something I need to deal with.” He still looked concerned and even a little hurt at her dismissal but he relented.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure, thanks though, Mason.” She smiled at him in a way she hoped was reassuring, then turned around to head into the rest of the house. She tried to shake off Mason's concern and guilt. She'll try to talk to him later, depending on how this conversation goes.

She went to the Alpha's study. He tended to spend afternoons there, doing paperwork and taking meetings and such. She knew from following him and her dad around during breaks from school that he spent most of his morning visiting the other pack houses across the territory just checking in on people. He visited homes, places of work and the schools the pups go to very regularly to sniff out their welfare. Literally.

Winter often thought of him as a cross between an energetic shepherd, rushing around to keep his flock in line, and a harried mom keeping her children safe. He was big and tall and red headed like his son. But where Mason was cheery, Alpha Oakes was stern. His hair was silvered at the temples and kept short in a crew cut. His eyes always held warmth but he sported a permanent scowl that made him difficult to approach sometimes. She also knew from witnessing his leadership in action that folks rarely crossed him. And never twice.

She knocked on the heavy door to his study. He waved her in from his desk without looking up from the ledger he was writing in. The study was painted in hunter green and other masculine dark tones. The many wooden bookshelves were packed full of books and old texts and the armchairs in front of the desk were broken in. The whole room had an official businessy-yet-lived-in feel to it. She sat and waited for the Alpha's attention. One of the house omegas came in with a tray of hot tea and a plate of cookies and silently placed them before excusing herself again. Winter wasn't particularly hungry so she just sat and waited. The scratching of the Alpha's pen was the only sound in the room. 

“You can go ahead and close the door,” the Alpha rumbled, continuing with his note taking. Winter moved to do so then returned to her seat. The Alpha made a few more notations then shuffled papers and shut the book with a satisfied sigh. “Ah, thank god. I thought that would take all day.”

He turned back to Winter and settled into his seat, then leaned forward suddenly reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a toffee and offered it to her across the desk, eyes warm. She laughed and accepted. “Thank you, Alpha.”

She fiddled with the candy for a moment then pocketed it. She felt the Alpha's eyes on her.

“So, Winter. What brings you here today.” The Alpha had a way of speaking that made inquiries sound like statements. As though he were so commanding his voice could not lilt properly to actually ask a question. 

“I wanted to discuss my trip to Germany to study with the pack there.” She sat with her hands clenched in her lap. She tightened her grip on her own hand to help keep her voice steady. A useless endeavor since he can smell everything she felt anyway.

“Yes. I haven't heard from you one way or another. Alpha Krause is ready and willing of course, but I wasn't sure what your plans were.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly relaxed. 

“Yeah, about that...” She paused to breathe before rushing through with “I was wondering if it would be possibly for me to study in France instead.” 

The Alpha considered her a moment. “I don't have any contacts in France.” 

“I know.” She jumped in eagerly. “I have a contact. My relatives, on the druid side, they're in the Rhone Valley. And there are a few there that could teach me. You know, they could teach me … the druid stuff...” She trailed off.

She felt silly bringing this up. But she'd been thinking about it for too long to not. 

For his part, the Alpha just looked at her silently. They sat there a moment. Winter trying very hard not to fidget, and Alpha Oakes with his trademark resting scowl face. Finally, he relented. “You do know that our pack has traditions.”

“Yes, Alpha.” She responded obediently.

“One of those traditions being for an emissary for our pack to study with the Krause pack.” 

“Yes, Alpha.”

Another pause. 

“Are you interested in being our pack emissary.” 

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Of course, Alpha. This place, this pack, its my home.” 

He nodded as though he confirmed something for himself. “But you don't want to follow tradition.”

Again, a statement that might be question. Maybe its more like a command for information. 

“No, Alpha, I...” She struggled to find the right words.

“It's not that I'm against this tradition. Its that,” she looked around the office for inspiration. Finding none, she tried again. “It's that I need something more. I have this spark and I feel it. But I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what it needs and I don't feel...” Again she trailed off trying to find the right word. 

“Whole.” Alpah Oakes finished for her. 

Winter shuddered with relief. Yes, whole is the word. She had no idea how much so until he had said it.

“You don't feel whole, without addressing the spark.” He sat there gazing at her with his warm eyes. 

She nodded as the tears in her eyes spilled over. To have him understand made her feel light with relief. Months of worry left her shoulders in a rush. “I'm sorry, Alpha. I didn't know how to tell you. I should have brought it up sooner.” 

He nodded in understanding. Then was pensive for a moment. She let him think quietly while she surreptitiously tried to tug a napkin from the tea tray into her hand to blow her nose. The werewolf of course noticed. Werewolves notice everything. So he lifted the teapot to free the napkins then proceeded to pour them each a cup. He nudged the plate of cookies towards her and she made use of both the cookie plate and the sugar bowl. They sat sipping a moment.

Finally, he came to a resolution. From the slump in his shoulders, it seemed to be one he was unhappy with. “The emissary goes to the Krause pack for training as part of an old treaty between the two packs. You are the third emissary in your line to not want to go to Germany for training.” 

This was news to Winter. She had no idea there were others who bucked this tradition. She knew that her dad went loyally. He still tells stories about his German exploits. She was immediately curious who it was then that didn't go. “What happened to them?”

The Alpha placed his half drank tea back on the tray. “Both those emissaries opted to pursue training for their spark.” He leveled an eye on her. “It seems our current tradition is ill-suited towards those with druidic leanings.”

“Oh.” was all she could offer.

“Oh is right. Changing the tradition to be more flexible to our emissaries means renegotiating the treaty with Alpha Krause.” The Alpha raised his eyes heavenward and sighed here. “And German weres are _impossible _to negotiate with.”

Winter had to suppress a chuckle. Common wisdom said that all werewolves were impossible to negotiate with. She had a handful of experiences validating that fact, most of which featured heavily the werewolf in front of her. Hearing the Alpha bemoan the same thing was hilarious to her in a way she had to stifle.

He looked back to Winter with amusement in his warm eyes. She smiled back sympathetically.

“I'm so sorry to be causing such a problem, Alpha.” She shrugged her shoulders up in a _shucks, what can ya do _gesture. He shook his head at her. 

“What do you need me to do though?” She asked.

The Alpha looked at her sadly. “Unfortunately, as it stands now, we'll have to assume you'll not be an emissary for us.” 

The bottom fell out of her stomach. Winter knew this was a possibility but it still scared her. She nodded mutely as Alpha Oakes continued. “I'll work on renegotiating the treaty so that we can have more control of our emissary training process. But in the meantime, you'll have to go through the Council to continue your studies.”

At Winter's wrinkled nose, his eyes warmed and he nodded. “Yes, I am not happy about it either. All I can promise is that we'll fight to get you back when it comes time for it.” 

She nodded at his reassurance and thanked him. Being the Alpha of the prestigious Oakes pack did come with some sway over council decisions, but that is not a guarantee.

Most packs groomed their emissaries, taking on responsibility for their education and supplying them with what they needed to learn. This apprenticeship style of education is how most emissaries get placed. Those that didn't have a pack sponsor had to go through the ominously named Council. It was a roughly organized international governing body that policed the packs and associated emissaries. It was comprised of some representatives of the major packs, some very academic emissaries, emissary-trainees and featured some packless weres as the muscle.

Packs mostly managed themselves, settling the odd territory dispute or inter-pack argument with a treaty negotiated between emissaries or with a fight between the Alphas. The odd situation where the Council actually had to intervene were for the most egregious violations. In which case, the might of the Council and Council-aligned packs would rain down on the offenders. The Council was as fierce and feared as it was rarely heard from.

The reason for Winter's distaste of the Council now is that Council trained emissaries end up in a lottery to decide their pack. She would have more freedom to pursue her own training with how laissez-faire the Council was, but she may end up having to move to Nowheresville, Arkansas for her placement. Most packs prefer rural environments since it provided for privacy and room to run around. The Oakes were in the minority of city-dwelling weres and Winter was hesitant to be sent out to the backwoods on Council orders.

She debated for a moment whether or not to take everything back in the face of so much uncertainty. But she remembered the months of stress she'd been going through for this truth. As much as it may suck, she needs to do this for her spark.

The two agreed on a plan of action. The Alpha had to find to contact the Krause pack, and Winter was to contact her French connections and the Council as a free agent. She felt at once hollow and excited for the future. Alpha Oakes still looked at her kindly as she was leaving, so she took that as a good sign.

As she left the office after their talk, she ran into Mason standing in the hallway. “Gah! Were you waiting for me?”

He shrugged good naturedly. “I wanted to scare you twice today. This just happened to be my window of opportunity.” 

He smiled his dimple-less smile. She smacked his arm again, for form's sake. They laughed and bickered their way back to the hall closet. She could always fall into an easy pattern of teasing with Mason. Their banter was like a song you could never forget. Or a dance step.

He sobered as she pulled on her coat. He gazed at her with that unnerving patience that his dad did, as though he'd be fine waiting for her to spill something. Let's just say the Oakes men would be great at interrogation.

She cocked her head in inquiry at him in response. He smiled and nodded as though to grant her the point. “So, are you going to tell me what you were worried about?”

Since the conversation with the Alpha had gone so well, she didn't really have a reason to hesitate. But she still did. Choosing her spark and potentially Nowhersville, Arkansas over being his emissary felt like a betrayal that he did not deserve. Telling him about it felt like admitting she was cheating on him or something. 

His nostrils flared and he scented the air. “You're sad.” Sniff. “Worried and sad.”

He looked at her with an intense gaze. “Why are you worried and sad?”

This was apparently happening.

“I spoke with your father about not studying with the Krause pack. I want to pursue druidic training in France to hone my spark. Since I can't do that and stay the Oakes pack emissary without violating a treaty, I'm to go through the Council from here on out.” She tried to say it all quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. But with each part of Winter's confession, Mason's eyes grew wider and wider until he was left stunned silent, blinking at her. 

After a moment, he said inelegantly, “Huh.” 

“Yeah,” she agreed. 

“Oh, well. Then...” He trailed off as though he didn't know what to say. 

“Mason, its not-” she started to try to explain but he cut her off.

“No, its, that's cool. Like, you need to train your spark. Obviously. Totally makes sense. Let me know, you know, how it goes.” He started to back away as he was speaking. Winter tried to get him to stay by talking over him.

“Mason, no, I can explain.” But he did not hear her and left awkwardly. 

Defeated and unsure what to do, she left the house.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, there you are. I got the number for the council if you want it, but I know of a little pack over in Ely if you wanted to go see them," Sharon said.
> 
> “Well, I have no idea what council you mean, or where Ely is, so I'm going to go with your judgment on this one,” Amy replied. Sharon paused and just looked at Amy expectantly for a moment. 
> 
> When nothing came forth from either woman, Sharon finally nodded and said “Okay,” before leaving the kitchen without ceremony.
> 
> Amy scratched the cat's ears while munching on the cereal bar and told it solemnly, “I think she's warming up to me.” 

Amy found herself waking in the predawn hours of morning. Being in the wild and prone to more canine habits, she had actually adopted a more nap-based approach to her sleeping arrangement and hadn't actually slept the whole night through in months. Which is how she found herself in Sharon's kitchen attempting to finish the immense cleaning project in there while the sun rose. 

There was a moment of awkwardness, as she pulled down the dusty comforter of the bed Sharon had shared with her dead spouse when Amy first went to bed. But she squeezed her eyes closed and made a mental note to change out the sheets if she spent a second night there. She managed a solid four hours that night. Which is pretty impressive compared to what she was used to. She woke up with the remnants of that same tree dream again but the feeling she was left with afterwards was more content than usual. She thought she'd try to snag a nap around mid-morning if things panned out well.

_You mean if things don't end with a mob of locals killing Sharon because of you?_

The coyote growled from his resting place in her mind.

_You know I'm right,_ pouring her frustrated energy into scrubbing out the burnt crusties on the microwave door.

The coyote huffed at her, turned in a circle then laid down, snout on its paws, as he watched her from his place.

The smell of cigarettes, daisies and beef stew hit her before the sound of Sharon shuffling into the kitchen. Amy paused in her ministrations at her entrance so she caught Sharon's blink of surprise when she saw the results of Amy's labors.

There were dishes drying in the drying rack (that was buried by beer bottles and People magazines), the floor was swept (the remains of the half spilled bag of cat food secured in a cheerful tin labeled “Meow”) and the counter space was cleared of all sorts of debris (turns out the counter is a faux-marbled shade of gray). The various trash bags full of the many empty cigarette packs and empty boxes of processed foods had been taken out earlier. 

Sharon studied the space for a moment, swaying lightly on her feet, before shuffling towards the coffee pot that Amy had started about an hour ago to go with her breakfast. Amy waited a beat more, just to see if there would be any backlash or comment. Sharon poured a scoop of powder creamer into her cup and stirred before attempting a sip. She nodded to herself then turned and exited with the same shuffling gait she came in with. Amy shrugged to the tabby on the kitchen chair to her right, then went back to her cleaning. 

It was a half hour later (she was digging out the mop of the ridiculously packed pantry) when Amy noticed the beef stew smell was burning. 

_What the hell?! There _is _beef stew here?! _She followed her nose into the living room to find Sharon in her usual seat on the phone.

“No, I already told you-” she scowled in silence at whoever was on the other end for interrupting her. She was still in the same blue cardigan yesterday, but had switched out the pants and was now sporting several dozen poo emojis up and down her legs. The TV was blaring Fox again. 

Amy sniffed the air trying to find the stew. She took in several whiffs finding the stew to smell like burnt sauce and dry beef.

_Nasty, who would eat that?_

But another whiff gave her a sharpness to the daisy smell. Like someone had recently cut the ends and that tart stem smell was stronger than the pollen smell. But worse. Amy scrunched her eyebrows as she flared her nostrils to get a bead on the smell. It was like someone crammed a bunch of daisy stems into a blender. It was all bitter stalk. She wrinkled her nose at the juxtaposition.

_Where the fuck is it coming from?_

Suddenly, Sharon was shouting at the phone. Not into it, _at _it. She had pulled the cell away from her face and was yelling directly at its face. “I said it before! I'll say it again! It's MY house! And I ain't leaving! I don't need no pack pity! So stop! Asking!”

This last was said at such a volume that Amy decided that delaying her mopping was not appropriate so she 180'd and headed back to the safety of the kitchen. 

The burnt beef stew smell was even stronger now, smelling like charred bits. 

_Seriously, what the hell? Can you keep your freaky were- nose to yourself?! _ The sleeping coyote flicked its ear at her. He tended to nap quite a bit when she was driving the body.

She started filling the bucket with hot water. She was uncharitably surprised that Sharon had a stock of cleaning supplies under the sink. Though all of it was cheap, bulk sized cleaners so Amy was apparently going to use ammonia for mopping. 

_God damn, I miss Swiffer, _she thought morosely.

That started a tangent of other things she missed. _Burgers. Netflix bingeing. Having my own shower._

Her little basement apartment she had was cute. She hung up whatever she wanted on the walls and played her music loud. Missing her home quickly led to other things she hasn't seen in eight months and she quickly had to distract herself before she was crying into the bucket of suds. 

_Now, I may be pathetic enough to be homeless and cleaning a hoarder's kitchen out of boredom, but I am not so pathetic as to be homeless and cleaning a hoarder's kitchen out of boredom while crying,_ she thought to herself stubbornly.

She realized the tactical error she made as she was finishing the floor (the floor tiles were actually white). She mopped from the back of the kitchen to the entrance, leaving her trapped with staying in the living room while it dried. Amy had deliberately distracted herself so as not to eavesdrop on what was clearly a private conversation so she was pleasantly surprised to find Sharon laughing on the phone when she returned. 

“Oh no, that was you! Mom always said you did that! Not me!”

The beef stew smelled rich and meaty and the daisies were fresh and fragrant with no hint of burning or cut stems respectively. Amy took another whiff to make sense, any sense, of what her nose was telling her. But nope. Apparently, Sharon smells like stew and daisies and those smells changed their tenor based on her mood.

_What the fuck dude!? _The coyote was startled out of his slumber by her shout and blinked at her. _You broke my nose! My normal human nose does not do that! It does _not _smell moods!_

He turned his head away from her, as if to consider the space to his left, before adjusting and laying back down nonchalantly. 

Amy gritted her teeth and clenched her hands. _Fucking werecoyote nonsense. Super healing, trippy visions and now moods have smells. What in the ever loving..._

She wished, not for the first time, that she could literally throttle the coyote inside her.

Sharon was still laughing and talking on the phone in a manner that suggested she'd be a while so Amy went back to the bedroom for her nap. She made a mental note to dig into the stash of vodka she found in Sharon's freezer. She was long overdue for some drunkenness.

\------

Judging by the light, it was around noon when Amy awoke again, coughing on the dust as it billowed out from the comforter with her movement. 

_I really need to deal with that._

When she emerged out of the room again Sharon wasn't to be found anywhere, so Amy helped herself to a few packaged breakfast bars. She was scratching the tabby under his chin and admiring her own handiwork in the kitchen when Sharon came in from the back porch. 

“Oh, there you are. I got the number for the council if you want it, but I know of a little pack over in Ely if you wanted to go see them.” She stomped in place a bit to warm up. 

“Well, I have no idea what council you mean, or where Ely is, so I'm going to go with your judgment on this one,” Amy replied. Sharon paused and just looked at Amy expectantly for a moment. 

When nothing came forth from either woman, Sharon finally nodded and said “Okay,” before leaving the kitchen without ceremony.

Amy scratched the cat's ears while munching on the cereal bar and told it solemnly, “I think she's warming up to me.” 

Sharon returned with a change of clothes, complete with a pair of canvas shoes and dumped them into Amy's arms without comment. “So, we're heading out to Ely then?” Amy asked.

“That's what we decided, right?” Sharon shrugged while opening the fridge. The inside was a Darwinian disaster that Amy didn't even attempt to tackle that morning. 

“I'll drive ya. Wolves get weird about strangers,” she told the contents of the fridge.

Amy fingered the canvas shoes and considered the slush on the ground. “Do you have anything a little more...” Amy trailed off while Sharon turned back with a handful of ham in her hand. Just ham. In her hand. That she started munching on. 

Amy tried again, “Do you have a pair of shoes more suited to winter weather?” She asked this while waving the offered pair as a visual aid. 

Sharon shrugged. “You're a werewolf. You'll live.”

As she turned to leave the kitchen she threw back over her shoulder, “Its better than what you were wearing outside last night.”

_Touche, strange lady. Touche. _ Amy was starting to develop a strange respect for this weird shut in. 

Ely, as it turned out, was the nearest major town and it was a downright metropolis with nearly 4,000 residents and even boasting a Family Dollar. Amy watched the Nevada plains race by on the 15 minute drive. The sky was the flat, slate gray of a dreary February and the landscape was coated in snow making for a uniform milky gray expanse. It struck her how seeing the land whiz past at 60 mph was such a different experience then trekking through it one paw at a time. It looked more like a picture or a video than the rich habitat teeming with life that she knew it actually was.

Her coyote whined.

Inside the rusty SUV, that seemed to be running by the power of duct tape or black magic, Sharon was nodding along to her country music. Amy was impressed with how little the woman spoke.

From a very young age, Amy had always tried to get people to like her. She'd make small talk with anyone, always asking how their day was or asking interested questions about them. She shared little about herself but always made a point to pull conversation out of others. Or to try to make their day better simply because they existed in the same space as her in that moment. It was only when she was living alone for the first time in her life that she realized how exhausting that was.

To see Sharon so confidently not trying to make polite small talk was rather jarring. Not just in the sense that it was off-putting to be in her presence, but in the sense that Amy had never before considered that to be a possibility.

_So, that's what not giving a shit actually looks like, _she realized.

Amy considered Sharon as she watched her drive. She was scooted far forward in her seat, gripping the steering wheel tightly and she'd occasionally make a humming sound along with the Alan Jackson song. _Whatever drum beat she's marching to in there seems to work for her. _

“So, tell me about this pack,” Amy decided to break the silence herself. 

“Not sure. Don't know much about them.” Sharon didn't look at Amy as she answered her query, just looked straight ahead out the windshield. “Ran into them at the mercantile. They sniffed me out, same as you.”

“Uh huh. So, you ran into them.”

“At the mercantile.” 

“Which means you met them.”

“Yep, when I ran into them.”

“At the mercantile.”

“Yep. When they sniffed me out.” 

“Like I did.”

“Yep.” 

Amy was working very hard to stifle her laughter. She had to take a breath to keep it from entering her voice. “So, if you met them, then surely you know something about them.” 

Sharon turned briefly to look at Amy in confusion. “Like what?”

_Jesus. Sign me up for two of whatever she's taking. _“I dunno, like names?” 

“Oh! Ana-Sofia and something-mina. I thought you meant like were- things.” 

“Were-things?”

“Yeah, you weres sniff each other out and know things that I never do. I don't know were- things about them. That you'd have to figure out your own self.” Sharon pulled into a parking lot of a small apartment building. There were only 8 units in the two stories and the narrow strip of pavement was the only barrier between the building and the main road in the town.

“Now, you wait here. New weres need to be introduced or all manner of wolfing out may happen. And that ain't pretty.” 

Amy shrugged good naturedly. The only were- she knew was herself, so she decided to trust Sharon's opinion. She did climb out of the car to wait by the hood. If it happened that she could hear better out here, then that was her own business. 

Sharon had walked up the steps and was heading down the line of doors on the balcony when the door at the far end opened in advance of her. A dark woman with her hair pulled back in a severe pony tail stepped out and scowled down at Amy. 

_Apparently there's no need to knock on a weres door, _Amy thought wryly.

Amy could still track Sharon's beef stew and daisy smell. The woman on the balcony had a dry paper smell that she could pick up from her position in the parking lot. Paper and pine? Amy tried to subtly smell deeper. The woman was watching her so she tried to not be too obvious with the sniffing. Amy confirmed the pine smell and was also able to pick up something akin to that animal smell that lead her to Sharon's house. _That must be what weres smell like then. _

Her coyote was up and alert and sniffing too. His hackles weren't raised, which Amy took as a good sign. 

The woman ushered Sharon inside without a word and slammed the door closed. _Well then, _Amy thought. She wasn't sure what she did to piss off this stranger, but she hoped it was something good. 

She passed the time by taking in the sights around her. She nervously looked around her at first, before realizing she was looking for mobs and pitchforks. She willed herself to chill and actually enjoy the neighborhood she was in. She found herself finding it simultaneously quaint and overwhelming. Living in Denver, she was used to crowds and skyscrapers, so Ely was an adorable toy town by comparison. However, her time in Denver was as a full human. Being here, now, she was inundated with smells and sounds that she was processing on both the human and coyote levels. It was a lot of stimuli and she mentally shuddered at the idea of experiencing Denver like that. 

She paused for a moment to consider what going back to her home in Jefferson City would be like. _I could give my parents a call, _she mused. _I _should _give them a call, _she corrected. 

_What would I even say?_

Her musings were cut short when the apartment door opened and Sharon breezed out. The door stayed ajar but no one else appeared. She strained to hear anything from the apartment within but could tell the occupants were being silent. She waited patiently for the older woman to make it down to the car. 

“Alright, you can head on up. They'll answer your questions but that's it. They don't need an Alpha.” Sharon opened the car door and made to get inside. 

“Wait, are you leaving me?”

“Yep, I'm headed over to the general store. Pick up a few things while I'm here.” She got into the cab of the car and Amy had to put a hand out to stop her closing the door. 

“What if I don't want to be left with them?” Sharon looked askance at this. 

“We drove out here for you to talk, so talk. I ain't gonna be gone long so make it quick.” She gave the car door an experimental tug, testing if Amy would let it go, which she did. She then slammed the door and started up the car. 

Amy felt silly. She had genuinely thought Sharon wasn't going to leave her, but the batty old woman just sucked at communication. She scowled at the rust bucket as Sharon drove away before turning back to the mysterious apartment. 

As she approached the cracked door, Amy took a preliminary whiff. Wafting out from inside were the homey smells of cooking food. She could make out roasting beef, various peppers and spices and warmed tortillas. She could also smell laundry detergent and aged upholstery. She made out not one but two different of those strange animal/were- smells. The first one that paired with the pine and paper smell of the angry woman from before was smooth and nonthreatening. But the second one was paired with the smell of warmed corn flour and some kind of flower. Maybe a weed? Amy knew she recognized it, but wasn't sure from where. The second were- smell was also richer and it itched at her nose. 

The coyote sat up and perked his ears. 

No one came out to greet her as she neared the door so Amy decided to politely knock. “Hello?”

“Come on in, you know we're in here,” a sharply accented voice said from inside. And she was right, even if not for the smell, Amy certainly could hear the breathing and heartbeat of both of them from outside and could tell where they were in the main room.

_Sometimes this werecoyote thing is kinda creepy._

The coyote was too distracted by who was inside to react to her.

Amy pushed the door open. The apartment opened up into a main living room area with an open kitchen off to the left. The place was not decorated and the furnishings were both cheap and mismatching. As though they had just recently moved in and in a hurry. But the steeped in smells of the place told a different story. Without obnoxiously sniffing it out to confirm, Amy guessed they'd been living here for over a year. 

The severe ponytailed woman stood a few feet from the door, arms akimbo and feet planted, as though prepared for a fight. Amy raised her arms in surrender while stepping in. The other woman was seated awkwardly on the coffee table a bit behind her sister. Seeing them in person, that's clearly what they were. Both of the women had a rich, nutty complexion and shiny jet black hair. They both also had soft curves on stocky frames. But where the standing woman was severe and angry, looking at Amy as though she was a pile of shit she just stepped in, the sitting woman looked more open and welcoming. Not just in her curious expression, but also with her short hair hanging loosely around her face. 

Her coyote was leaning forward to get closer to the seated woman. A bit like a dog pulling on a leash.

_What the hell, dude. Chill. _He whined.

_Yeah, okay. She smells good, but calm your tits._

Once fully inside, Amy gestured as though to close the door with eyebrows raised, asking if that was what was needed. The angry woman jerked her head so Amy left it open. 

“So, Sharon says you have no pack,” the angry woman started brusquely. Amy winced. She hadn't expected it to hurt when said from a stranger like that. But it landed a bit like an epithet.

“Yeah, that's true. Sharon told me nothing about you two,” Amy responded.

When nothing was forthcoming, she waved awkwardly, one hand in her borrowed jeans pocket. “Hello, I'm Amy. Recently turned werecoyote. Going on eight months now.”

The seated woman chuckled. 

The coyote preened. 

_Are you fucking kidding me right now? She's laughing at what _I _said._

The woman with the ponytail didn't smile or invite Amy further in from the entryway but she did drop her arms. Amy's counting that as a win. “I'm Ximena and this is Ana Sofia. We were bitten as teenagers.”

“Hey. Thanks for meeting with me. Sharon is the first person I've met who knew anything about me,” Amy sank her shoulder to seem smaller.

“She said that. That you had no idea what you were. That can't be true.” Ximena's paper smell had been strong this whole time, but here it started to smell like damp, moldy paper. Amy's nose wrinkled.

“Okay, well it is true. I mean, I had a guess about it. The whole growing fur thing was a bit of a clue.”

“Its just that biting someone is a big deal. An alpha would want to train their new pack mate.” 

“Alright. Its not like I don't believe you, but I don't know anything about packs. Much less what constitutes a big deal in one.” Amy threw her arms to the side in a frustrated gesture. She was trying to not be hostile, but she was feeling attacked. 

For her part, Ximena looked frustrated too. Her accented grew thicker as she spoke and the moldy paper smell thickened. “But the bite is the first bond. Even a lone alpha biting someone would be a pack of two.” 

Amy trying to convince this woman that what happened to her actually happened was starting to make her angry. The coyote finally stopped mooning over Ana Sofia and was starting to pace in response to Amy's frustration. “Okay. I don't know what that means. All I know is that I woke up in a desert all by myself and then my body felt like it turned inside out and I had no idea what was going on.” 

Both Ximena and the silent Ana Sofia looked shocked by this. “So, you were alone for your first shift?” 

“I've been saying that I've been alone this whole time.” 

“But that's not possible.”

_Are you fucking kidding me? _ “Okay, I don't understand why you're arguing this with me. Either I'm a liar making up a grand story to get you to give me information about werewolves for some reason or I'm telling the truth and can really use some information about werewolves.”

“No., I'm saying that its. Not. Possible. Shifting by yourself without help... that's not,” Ximena trailed off shaking her head. Ana Sofia was leaning forward with a hand out to Ximena as though to interrupt her. Her weed smell intensified into a sticky sap smell and all but drowned out the corn flour notes. Ximena stared at Amy, ignoring her sister, before shouting, “There is no way that happened!”

Amy snapped. **“****I****t did happen!” **

She could feel the growl within her when she shouted and the other two women winced and visibly shrunk back. 

_And I had been trying so hard to keep my cool._

Amy took a breath and reached for the calming moon feeling. She took another breath for good measure. 

“Look, I apologize for yelling. I did not mean to lash out like that. I just...” She looked at Ximena pleadingly, “I don't know anything about how things _should_ _have _been done. I only know what _did _happen.”

She looked between the both of them. “That's why Sharon brought me here. So that I can learn something from you two. If you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. I'm not actually interested in arguing with you.” She held up her hands in surrender again.

Ximena was wide eyed and soundless. Her paper and pine smell was notably absent. As though her scent was in shock. Ana Sofia's unique were- smell was even richer and more noticeable now. The coyote was huffing big inhales in her direction. It came to her that the strange flower smell wafting from Ana-Sofia grew in the fields all around her house growing up. The smell of purple ivy could be found all over her neighborhood. Ana-Sofia leaned forward and spoke for the first time in the whole exchange, awe in her voice. “You really do have no idea.” 

Amy deflated. Like a puppet getting their strings cut. 

Ximena still seemed shocked but at least she lost her hostility. “But, that's not possible.” 

Amy tensed up again, ready to retort when Ximena cut her off. “I'm not saying you're lying, I'm saying that's-”

“-not possible. I heard.” Amy interrupted impatiently. 

Ximena waved her hands, “No, no. Oh here, come sit down.” She flapped her hand towards the little dining table off to the side and all three women moved towards it to sit. 

The coyote started to prance about at being in closer proximity to Ana Sofia. _Really, dude? Is her wolf... creature...thing, like, hot or something? _

He bared his teeth at her briefly before turning back. _Whatever. _

Ximena leaned forward once Amy sat down. “I mean, the first shift is awful. The shift is always violent, your whole body reshapes itself to become something different, something impossible. And the first time it happens...” 

Amy sighed. “I know. I was there.” 

“Did you lose your mind?” Ximena was so blunt in the question that it took a moment for it to register. In the pause, Ximena continued. “That's why we need our alpha for that first shift. They help us stay grounded. So we remember who we are through it.” 

Amy started to tear up. _Oh. _

She had to take a breath before answering. And when she did, she felt oddly vulnerable about it.

“Um, yeah. I guess I did lose my mind.” She kept her gaze on the table, running her finger along the pattern of a wood whorl. 

“I forgot who I was. I lived in the desert, eating mice and things. And when I remembered,” her voice caught in her throat so she took a moment to gather herself again. “When I remembered,” she said more steadily, “I found out four months had passed.” 

She was quiet for a bit before she felt a hand on hers. When she looked up, she saw Ana Sofia smiling reassuringly, her eyes glistening. Her corn flour smell bloomed rich and fragrant. Like frying street taco shells. “You did remember. You did come back.”

Amy nodded, tears running down her face. There was a look on Ximena's face that she couldn't quite decipher, but her pine smell was thick and resin-y. “I haven't heard of anyone living in their shift like that. What was that like?” 

Her crying seemed to have thawed whatever discomfort Amy had walked into. The three delved into the questions they had for each other and into their stories. Amy shared about the desert and trekking along the mountains. She held back about Erika and her fears about trying to go home. The sisters shared about coming to America when they were kids, then joining a pack as teenagers, then leaving their pack two years ago. Amy guessed from the gaps in their story that they were holding back about themselves too. Which only seemed fair. 

Sharon came back during their discussion, harried and trying to get on the road. The two sisters managed to convince her to stay for dinner instead of leaving right away. They parked her on the couch in the living room in front of the TV and the three of them continued their talk in the kitchen as they prepped dinner. Amy had no idea what was being cooked, but jumped in, glad to dice onions and tomatoes. Ana Sofia hand made fresh tortillas and baked them new and Amy's mouth watered in anticipation of all of it. 

As the fragrant spices simmered, Amy learned so much. Packs have a leader known as The Alpha because only alphas can give the bite to turn others. Any alpha can bite others, but in any given pack there is one Alpha. Packs tend to gather around full moons because the moon feels strong during that time and though some packs shift and run together, not all of them do. Packs often will have territory disputes with each other which Amy thought was pretty similar to what she experienced with the animal territories she crossed through.

She also learned that while there is the alpha shift, Amy's monster-shift, the half-human shift was actually called a beta shift. The two went back and forth on whether it was called that in reference to the beta gender, or to some other aspect of pack hierarchy before getting distracted by a different tangent. Either way, everything Amy knew about herself was true, but there was a whole lexicon of terms that apply to her own innate understanding. 

When she shared about what she did remember of being taken, the other women shared her shock and anger at what happened. But they had no idea who would have done such a thing. They shared what they knew of the neighboring packs who might be able to help her. The Norris pack was a large pack outside Las Vegas and there was the Ramirez pack north of Phoenix. They mentioned a Cunningham pack in Provo, but from their demeanor, Amy gathered that she didn't want to contact them. She wondered if this was the pack the women had left behind. 

Both Ximena and Ana Sofia seemed amused by how little Amy knew about alphas when the topic came up. The sisters explained that there were three categories, alpha, beta and omega but they were as vague as Sharon about what those classifications were exactly. They seemed to treat it like a self-evident truth about weres that defied explanation. 

Ximena was a beta and when Amy asked how that made her different she shrugged and said simply, “I can't do the things an alpha or omega do.” Which Amy found to be less than helpful. 

Ana Sofia very shyly told Amy that she was an omega. Amy smiled back at her uncomfortably, not sure what was expected from her with that information. When she asked how that made Ana Sofia different, she merely giggled and blushed. Ximena shooed her sister away then and scolded Amy on how she was stirring the sauce, stressing that she needed to use her wrist more. 

Finally, dinner was finished so they brought Sharon back into the kitchen and the conversation shifted to more general things. The meal was delicious and spicy. Amy used her tortilla to scoop up all the sauce and the others laughed when it spilled down her shirt on its journey to her mouth. Sharon even thawed a little. She told a few funny stories about some of the crazy claims she came across at her old job in insurance that had Amy nearly falling out of her chair. 

It was so warm and friendly that Amy mourned a bit when it came time to leave. She and Sharon waved their goodbyes, laden down with leftovers to take home. She didn't know what to do with what she learned tonight, or what she was going to do at all. But for the first time in, not just eight months, she realized with some shock, but for the first time in years, she didn't feel so lonely.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Honestly, I don't know anything helpful about him. I was taken from my car after work in Denver then I woke up in a desert in Utah. Did you know that Utah has a desert?”
> 
> The woman on the other end made an empathetic noise. “Utah, huh?” 
> 
> “I know! Right?” 
> 
> “So, you were bitten and then abandoned?” Amy made a confirming noise. “Then who helped you with your first shift?”
> 
> Remembering the back and forth with Ximena and Ana-Sofia on this subject, Amy just drily explained that she was all alone for that.
> 
> “But that's impossible,”

The tree leaves were rustling with the wind. The orange and red fronds fluttered like feathers but crinkled like paper. Amy was laying on her back looking up through the branches, the dirt cool against her back. The sound of the kids laughing in the distance made her smile. She could hear them shouting instructions to each other as they made up a game in the way children do. She felt a satisfied contentment knowing the little ones were safe and happy. She looked back up through the tree and watched a ray of sunlight blink at her flirtatiously through the moving leaves.

A door slammed open. “The phone's for you,” Sharon's loud rasp brought Amy suddenly awake. She gripped the comforter protectively and looked around to gain her bearings. She was still at Sharon's, using the abandoned master suite. Though Amy did take the time to swap out bed-sheets and the comforter yesterday, the room could still use a good dusting and vacuuming. 

“You gonna take it?” Sharon was waving her cell phone from the opened doorway impatiently. 

“Ye-” Amy coughed to clear her throat, “Yeah, I'll take it.”

_Who on earth is calling me?_

She stumbled out of bed, tripping over where the sheets tangled up with her feet and snagged the phone from Sharon who then retreated down the hallway as though she were physically in pain. 

Shaking her head she answered with a casual “ 'ello?” thinking Ximena was on the other line. She literally knew no one else.

“Is this Amy Kemp?” The voice was unfamiliar. And rather businesslike. Amy coughed to clear her throat of its sleep huskiness.

*cough* “Ah-hm. Yes, this is Amy.” She sat up straight and tried very hard to sound as though she wasn't lying in bed.

“Hello, I am with the Council. Mrs. Damnum has reported that you are a lone alpha without a pack. Is this accurate?” Amy could hear shuffling of papers on the other end.

_Who is Mrs. Damnum?_

“Uh, yes. I suppose so.” 

“It is the responsibility of the biting alpha to train and domesticate any and all turned weres. Are you aware of this?”

Amy was put off-balance by the conversation. “No, I don't know anything about weres.”

“The unsanctioned turning of humans is prohibited by Edict 28. Your siring alpha will have to remand himself to the Council for corrective measures. Do you understand?”

After a while, Amy realized the voice on the other end sounded much younger than she did at first. Despite her tone and the seriousness of what she was describing, the voice had the feminine lilt of a college-aged student.

“Honestly, no. Who is this again?” Amy asked.

“I am Winter Sloan, an emissary-adept with the Council. I have been assigned to your case.”

_I have a case? _

“And what is this council-thingie again?”

Winter's voice lightened with humor. “Its called the Council. Capital C. And its a big deal among the were-community. Feral alphas are a serious concern so I've been assigned the task of making sure that doesn't happen to you. What do you know about your siring alpha?”

Amy knew his face. The sound of his voice. She knew she hated him. She knew the rumbling feel of the moving van as she lay on her side and listened to him argue about where to abandon her for dead. She knew he could have prevented her from losing eight months of her life in the wild. He could have prevented Erika's death and everything that happened in that trailer. She knew she hated him. 

“Honestly, I don't know anything helpful about him. I was taken from my car after work in Denver then I woke up in a desert in Utah. Did you know that Utah has a desert?”

  
  


The woman on the other end made an empathetic noise. “Utah, huh?” 

“I know! Right?” 

“So, you were bitten and then abandoned?” Amy made a confirming noise. “Then who helped you with your first shift?”

Remembering the back and forth with Ximena and Ana-Sofia on this subject, Amy just drily explained that she was all alone for that.

“But that's impossible,” Winter responded.

Amy groaned audibly. _Are you people freaking kidding me?!_

“I have spoken to some other weres who also had a hard time believing it. But I assure you, I was all alone. In the desert. My insides burst out and became my outsides. It was awful, but then I went and kinda ran around the desert for a bit. And it took me four months to remember who I was and come back and be a human again. And then it was a bit of a nightmare, so then I spent four more months running round in the woods. And its kinda been tricky since my life was ripped from me and I have no idea what I'm doing or what I should do. So, if you're like my social worker or case worker or something then I'd really like some help with a couple of things.” Amy cut herself off from the rambling and she was on the verge of tears. The coyote paced restlessly in her mind. 

The woman on the other end was silent for a bit. Amy got up from the bed and paced around the room. She didn't want to take the conversation out into the living room where Sharon might be but she felt cooped up. So she settled with pacing from wall to wall, a bit like a bee trapped in a jar. 

Finally, “You were feral for four months?” Winter was tentative with the question.

Amy shrugged. Then she remembered Winter couldn't see her. “I dunno. What does feral mean here?” 

“It means you forgot who you were. That the animal completely took over. That you weren't even a werewolf at the time, just the wolf.” 

The coyote grumbled.

“Coyote,” Amy corrected.

“I'm sorry?” 

“My, animal-guy, or whatever. He's not a wolf. He's a coyote.” She clarified. The coyote settled back on his haunches proudly. Amy rolled her eyes. “And he's really particular about not being called a wolf,”she said ruefully.

The woman didn't respond a bit again. Amy could hear pen scratching as she was writing something down. “You're saying that you lived as a coyote. For four months. Having forgotten your humanity. Then remembered again.” 

Amy seesawed her head as she paced, considering. “Well, yeah. That is what happened.” She was unsure why it was the big deal everyone was making it out to be. 

“Then you went into the woods?” Winter continued, relaying the bits Amy had already shared, as questions to be confirmed. So Amy confirmed with a mm-hm noise after every question. “And lived in the wild for another four months? As the coyote?”

“Kinda. I'd take turns with my shifts depending on the day.”

“Did you use the full coyote form?”

“Yes.” 

“Some of the time, most of the time?”

This interview was oddly making Amy remember Deputy Hayes. She wondered briefly how he was doing. Then she wondered what kind of report he made about Erika's trailer. A pit settled in her stomach unrelated to Winter's questioning. “Most of the time.”

Winter made an inquisitive noise at this. “It was easier,” Amy defended. “Being a coyote in the wild is easier then the beta or alpha shift.”

The new words her friends taught her last night were still unfamiliar in her mouth. But she figured calling herself a monster was not the best first impression and that Winter knew what she meant with them. 

“You have an alpha shift?” Winter had completely foregone professionalism with the rise in her tone now. Apparently, this information was shocking to her. 

“Yes?” She was unsure, again, why any of this is a big deal. Winter went on to ask clarifying questions about the alpha shift. What it looked like, how big it was, what it felt like and so on. It seemed she was assessing whether or not Amy had actually done it. When she confirmed as much there was more pen scratching over the line. Then Winter assessed for something else.

“Did you hurt anyone while in alpha shift? Or while you were feral?”

Amy froze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said patiently, “Did you hurt anyone in all of this?”

Amy stopped pacing and slumped to the floor to answer. “Yes,” she said weakly. 

“Who did you hurt and when?” Winter's voice was absent any judgment or anger. She asked the question with kindness and patience. Amy jammed the heal of her hand into her teary eye and the coyote whimpered. 

“I was staying with a woman named Erika in Fillmore, Utah. No! Not Fillmore,” Amy tried desperately to remember. It was strange how she can still taste the iron on the air from the blood in the kitchen but she forgot the name of the town. “Meadow! It was in Meadow or something. Small town. And some men came...” She trailed off and struggled to pick it up again. 

Winter sighed on the other end. “Let me guess, this Erika was helping you. Wasn't she?” Amy made a confirming noise. “Then the men came to hurt you two, for one reason or another, and you defended her?”

_How on earth does she know!?!_

Amy was baffled by Winter's guess. “Did you hear about it already? Did it make the news?”

“No, shhh, no its okay. Well, I'm going to check if it made the news. We try to keep were-business on the down low from the masses. But no, I didn't hear about it. But I know a thing or two about stuff so I can usually make a good guess about some things. So, you were protecting Erika and the men got hurt? How many?”

Amy shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I didn't protect her,” she whispered. “I failed.” 

Winter was silent for several moments. It felt like she was just sitting with Amy, while Amy cried. So, she did. She thought she had spent all her tears about Erika, but apparently not. She sniffed and wiped her eyes and tried to get herself back together. She coughed for good measure. “Ah-hm! So, um, yeah, that was, well. I think three men were, you know... and Erika. But the rest ran away. I don't know what happened after...”

..._because I ran like a wuss._

“You went back into the wild and lived like an animal,” Winter finished for her. It was harsh hearing it out loud like that, but somehow, Winter made it sound like an okay thing to do. Like doing that made sense. Amy knew it didn't, but she cried a bit more and affirmed it for Winter. 

There was more pen scratching and paper shuffling as Amy worked to pull herself together again. 

Finally, she said, “Look, the Council will have to investigate just to make sure you're not a threat to others. I'll let you know what happens with that. But it wasn't your fault. It sounds like you're blaming yourself and that's not fair to you. You should have a pack and an alpha showing you the ropes but you were left to figure it out on your own. And protecting someone from harm when you're outnumbered never turns out well. So, its not your fault and you are allowed to forgive yourself.” 

Winter's voice was kind and soothing. And she was saying things Amy desperately wanted to be true, but she knew they weren't. She sat mute on the floor feeling how pathetic she was.

[“You're such a dumb bitch, you know. You can't do anything right.”]

“Ookaaaay.” Winter drew the word out as she shuffled more papers. “So, you're from Colorado, you were bitten then abandoned, went feral after your first shift, reclaimed your humanity on your own, obtained alpha shift, got into an altercation with some locals and now you're in Nevada without a pack. Is this correct?” 

Having it all summed up clinically like that made it seem both better and worse at the same time. Amy would never have used the word feral to describe herself so it sounded really bad to hear Winter say it like that. Like it was something shameful or that she should be messed up about it. And who knows, maybe she was. But it was off-putting to hear it like that from a stranger. And also, as brief as that sentence was, there was none of the actual trauma that Amy went through it in. It sounded so clinical to say _reclaimed your humanity on your own._ Like it glossed over the hours she spent sobbing in the dirt. And Amy wasn't even sure her humanity _was_ fully reclaimed, so to speak. She could still see those dead guys on Erika's living room floor when she tried to sleep at night.

_Do you even fully come back from that? _Amy wondered.

She cleared her throat and answered, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“That's... I can't even...” Winter started and stopped a few times. “If you don't have a pack, then you don't know? Do you?”

Amy was so done with this conversation now. “Know what?” 

“What a big deal all of this is.” Winter's voice seemed to hold some awe and something else. Not pity. There was some kind of care or concern laced in her voice that was pity-adjacent that had Amy's hackles rising for a moment, but her voice was warm enough that it soothed her defenses. Amy wished she could smell the woman to tell what she was feeling. 

It never occurred to her before that she could feel blind without her nose. 

“No, I guess I don't know. I'm just trying to get through the next day, you know?” Amy felt like she had to defend herself against something here, but she wasn't clear what that was. 

Winter made a sound of agreement. “I get it. Luckily, I'm here to help. We try to keep the werewolf thing, sorry, werecoyote thing on the down low from the muggles. So, try to stick with Mrs. Damnum for now and lay low. I'll be looking into finding you a pack that could be a good fit as well as which pack is actually responsible for you. The Council will want to investigate them. I'll call back on this number when I have anything. Is there anything else you can think of?”

_Muggles? _Amy was so overloaded with emotion she couldn't tell if it was actually that funny, or if she was just punchy. Either way, she had to smother her giggles. 

“No, I'm good. I... wait. How do I get a hold of you?”

“Oh, let me give you my direct number.” Winter gave her number and email address and plenty of reassurance to call her whenever. Amy nodded but suspected Winter was offering something she wasn't comfortable accepting. They then said their goodbyes and disconnected. Amy's mind was overwhelmed to the point of feeling blank.

It was great to be getting so many leads about this were- business and maybe even a bead on who did this to her, but all of it coming at once was so overwhelming. Amy wandered out of the kitchen. Sharon was gone from the house and Amy was feeling a bit stir crazy. She debated shifting to go running around outside. Her poor coyote was beginning to feel a bit cooped up, but she couldn't abide sleeping another day without dealing with the dust in the bedroom. So she dug out the vacuum and a duster and went to town. 

She wiped down all of ...Mr. Sharon's?... things and found a spare box in the garage for them that ended up tucked under the row of hung slacks in the closet. 

_Mr. Damnum! _ In a flash of clarity, she suddenly realized that the Mrs. Damnum from the conversation with Winter must have been Sharon.

_Duh, Amy._

[Daniel flipped through Amy's textbook, she had been struggling with one assignment all week and Daniel was flipping through the pages, bored. “This is so basic. This is what you're working on? I know the answer and I haven't even taken the class.”]

She scrubbed down the bathroom making the room fully operable again. She pillaged fresher shower supplies from Sharon's hallway bathroom so she discarded the crusty Colgate. She threw the cobwebby curtains in the laundry and, after taking a butter knife to crease, was able to crack open the long shut window to let some fresh air in. Compared to the kitchen, this room cleaning was a cake walk. 

Amy had moved into the living room with a trash bag and was about to tackle her fourth pile of crap when Sharon's cell phone rang. The woman had used one of the default ring tones at full volume so Amy heard the trilling noise that one only heard in movies from the other side of the house. She went to the device mostly to get it to shut up. When she went to silence it the phone screen read:

\--Hee Meh Na Calling--

_Heemena...? Oh, my god, are you kidding me? Seriously Sharon._

Quickly, Amy swiped the screen to answer.

“Hey, Ximena. Whats up?”

“Get over here now.” Ximena's voice broke over the line thick and and angry. 

“What, is everything okay?” 

“No, you stupid guera! Everything is un quilombo because of you!” Not only was Ximena's accent thick in her anger but she was also throwing in Spanish. Amy had no idea what was happening but she was sure if she did something, she would have been the first to know. 

“I didn't do anything! What's going on!?” Ximena scoffed on the other end of the line and started rapid swearing in Spanish. Amy didn't catch it well enough to recognize it again but she was fairly certain it wasn't very complimentary of her. 

“Ana-Sofia is in heat, cabron! Get over here and help her!”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright, I'll come get ya in a few days.”
> 
> “Wait, what? A few days?” Amy was baffled.
> 
> What on earth is Sharon talking about? A few days? The older woman just gave her an unimpressed look. 
> 
> “You can tell Ximena she can come stay with me, but I suspect she'll want to be nearby to check in.” Sharon shifted the car back into drive to prepare to leave again.
> 
> “I'm just checking up on Ana-Sofia. I'm not moving in.” Sharon held her hands up in a I'm not arguing with you gesture. “Oh my god, Sharon. What is going on? What is wrong with Ana-Sofia that has everyone acting so weird?”
> 
> Sharon just studied Amy for a moment. The expression on her face seemed like a cross between looking for a lie and trying to figure out how to tell a child Santa wasn't real. Finally, she looked out onto the street and shrugged. 
> 
> She addressed the windshield when she said “Like I said before, I don't wanna know nothin'. So whatever happens while you're here, that's between you and Ana-Sofia.” She shifted in her seat with finality. “I'll come get you in a few days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Ana-Sofia is in heat so dubious consent warning here.

It took another hour for Sharon to return and then another twenty minutes of bickering back and forth for Amy to convince her to take her over to Ximena and Ana Sofia's. 

“I just came back from Ely, I don't wanna go out again!” and “Let me have my smoke in peace!” 

Finally, Amy told her what Ximena said, about Ana-Sofia needing help with her heat, whatever that was. Her eyebrows shot to her hairline and after gaping like a fish for a few moments she finally uttered, “I don't wanna know nothin'.” 

Then she grabbed her keys and wordlessly went back out to the car.

Amy had no idea what a heat was, but from Ximena's semi-incomprehensible shouting, it seemed pretty dire. Apparently, the heat had started pretty quickly after dinner last night. Amy worried if there was something wrong with the food that cause Ana-Sofia to be sick or something, but that didn't really make any sense.

If being a werecoyote gave me rapid ability to heal, then it followed that there would be rapid recovering from illness too. Right? 

And she wasn't entirely sure how Ana-Sofia being sick could possibly be here fault. Ximena said something about her voice causing the issue. 

“You used your alpha voice when you was mad, estupido.” Her voice over the line was bitter and sullen. But Amy had no idea how talking could cause someone to get sick. Yes, she was an alpha, whatever that meant. Yes, talking uses her voice. She had no idea how using her voice while alpha could be such a problem. Or even how I'm supposed to help. Or what is going on?! 

All Amy knew, really, was that something was terribly wrong. Her coyote was restlessly bouncing around in her mind and she had no idea what crawled up his fluffy butt so she did her best to ignore him as the clunker of Sharon's SUV raised down the highway. When they arrived, Sharon pulled to the side of the road rather than entering the parking lot. 

“Alright, I'll come get ya in a few days.”

“Wait, what? A few days?” Amy was baffled.

What on earth is Sharon talking about? A few days? The older woman just gave her an unimpressed look. 

“You can tell Ximena she can come stay with me, but I suspect she'll want to be nearby to check in.” Sharon shifted the car back into drive to prepare to leave again.

“I'm just checking up on Ana-Sofia. I'm not moving in.” Sharon held her hands up in a I'm not arguing with you gesture. “Oh my god, Sharon. What is going on? What is wrong with Ana-Sofia that has everyone acting so weird?”

Sharon just studied Amy for a moment. The expression on her face seemed like a cross between looking for a lie and trying to figure out how to tell a child Santa wasn't real. Finally, she looked out onto the street and shrugged. 

She addressed the windshield when she said “Like I said before, I don't wanna know nothin'. So whatever happens while you're here, that's between you and Ana-Sofia.” She shifted in her seat with finality. “I'll come get you in a few days.” 

There was enough resolution in her voice that Amy knew the subject was closed. She got out of the cab and slammed the door shut and watched as Sharon literally squealed away. With no other option, she made her way back up to the apartment on the second floor. As she did yesterday, Ximena opened the door in advance of her arrival. Amy was still two doors down when she burst onto the balcony, raced down the row and started shepherding Amy into the apartment with a firm grip on her arm. 

“Oh my god, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming. Jeez.” With all the grace of a pair of drunk elephants, they banged into the apartment and Ximena slammed the door closed.

Then Amy was locked inside with the most tantalizing aroma she had ever come across. It was like sex in a bottle. It was the feel of an orgasm made into an odor. It was a silky cloud. A cascading tumble of airborne pheromones. She felt herself get hard. She hadn't even realized she shifted into her beta shift. The smell was so intoxicating, she actually swayed on her feet with the first inhale. 

The second inhale revealed burnt corn and smoking ivy. It was like someone had set fire to a meadow of the flowery weed and then dumped a truck full of taco shells into it. She nearly gagged on it. 

Ana-Sofia is in pain. Amy moved toward the source of the smell. 

Ximena jumped to stand in front of her and the coyote growled. He had been jumping at the bit for over an hour now and didn't want to be delayed anymore. He bared his teeth at her. Ximena was beta shifted as well and she growled in warning. 

Amy actually stopped at that. She had never seen the beta shift on anyone else. Seeing Ximena's comely face disfigured and reshaped into a half-animal visage was fascinating to behold. She felt the burn in her eyes fade as she took a step back to appreciate what she was seeing. Ximena also relented. She stayed in shift but she took a step back to allow some space. 

“Look, she's my sister. And we've done a lot to avoid alpha knot-heads. She's in a really bad heat now and you need to help her. But I don't want you hurting her and I don't want you mating her.” 

Amy tilted her head in confusion. Only a small portion of that statement made any sense to her. Given the stink of sex in the air, she was beginning to have a guess about what a heat was. But what on earth was she supposed to do to.... 

“Wait what?!” She exclaimed. “You think that I can help with...” Amy gestured wildly to articulate any manner of indelicacies. Apparently, the “help” she was supposed to offer was of the fucking variety.

The coyote rumbled at her inside her mind. Given the coyote's keen interest, (or rather, his dick's keen interest) she had a guess that he'd be fine with the arrangement.

To her shock, Ximena was nodding morosely. “This heat is the worst since she first presented. She needs an alpha to help her.” Ximena waggled her eyebrows meaningfully.

“And since it was you who triggered it...” she said this last rather accusingly in Amy's opinion.

“But I didn't-” Amy interrupted to argue when a high pitched keening noise came from within the apartment. The coyote whimpered in response and Amy was overwhelmed with the urge to go to Ana-Sofia again. She was hurting, that much was clear. And Amy felt compelled to help in the marrow of her bones. The argument forgotten, she turned to Ximena. “Okay, what do I do? Or don't do?”

Keep her hydrated and fed. Omega heats apparently tax the body's ability to heal so Ana-Sofia will have some very high self-care needs. Ximena pointed out the pitcher of water and bottles of Gatorade as well as a brief rundown of the more calorie dense foods in the pantry. Amy was instructed to not worry about bathing over the next few days, (few days?!) but to keep on top of Ana-Sofia's physical state. Ximena's eyes slanted with threat while she described, in a frighteningly clinical way, how to check for tearing or bruising and left the threats to Amy's physical well-being if she failed in this regard implied. 

Mating involved biting and knotting. Ximena expressly forbade Amy from doing either of those things with any further explanation. Amy nodded but had no idea what any of that could be. She knew they were important because her coyote huffed in response to Ximena's words. Then Ximena was out the door with a “If you hurt my sister, I'll cut off your worthless alpha dick, pendejo.”

The door slam echoed throughout the apartment.

Alrighty then. 

There was a moaning noise and the smell intensified. It had been billowing and abating subtly throughout her talk with Ximena. Her coyote spun in an excited circle and urged her forward. She grabbed some Gatorade and a box of granola bars and headed towards the smell of Ana-Sofia. When she pushed open the bedroom door, she saw the writhing figure of Ana-Sofia. She was very obviously trying to achieve orgasm by rubbing against a pillow. Sweat was pooling into the dips of her lower back and her spread legs put her some her most private places onto wide display. Amy could hear her mumbling “Oh alpha,” to herself over and over again. 

Amy froze in the spot. On the one hand, her coyote was doing that tugging on the leash thing he did earlier, trying to get at Ana-Sofia. Amy dug her heels in and kept a grip on him. It was tricky keeping the upper hand in the beta shift, but Amy held firm. Because what the hell?! She had never been with a woman before. Just having the dick was freaking her out, actually using it with someone seemed even further beyond her imagination. Much less someone she hadn't had a chance to actually discuss this with. 

Does Ana-Sofia actually want this? Amy looked at her mewling in a state of need on the bed.

This is obviously a hormone induced state of horniness that... Amy's brain stuttered on her thoughts as she remembered the log she rubbed against for two days as she whined and suffered climax after climax in a fog.

Holy shit! Werewolf biology is so fucked up!

Suddenly, everyone's weirdness about alphas and omegas made more sense. Apparently, the things that betas don't do includes this odd sex haze. 

And Sharon's insistence at not knowing anything makes allll the more sense, she thought ruefully. 

Amy tentatively stepped forward, placing the food and beverages on the side table. Remembering how much she craved touch and relief with someone else during her episode, she reached out a hand to Ana-Sofia's shoulder. The woman's shaking immediately eased and she turned towards Amy.

“Alpha,” she whispered and nuzzled into Amy's neck, taking gasping breaths. Her breasts pushed against Amy and the sensation of Ana-Sofia's breath under her ear caused a cascade of goosebumps all the way down her back and legs. 

Oh jeez. 

“Okay, hi.” She gently pulled Ana-Sofia back to look into her glassy eyes. They were glowing gold and she was panting. Her hair was plastered against her neck and forehead by sweat and little tremors belied her urgency. “So …. how are you?” 

The woman whimpered and made abortive grabby motions with her fingers towards Amy. 

The coyote had given up pulling at the reigns but he was shaking on his haunches, ready to bolt. Amy knew that if given the lead, he'd just unleash on this poor women. Which, given her little mewls and the rotation motion she was making with her hips, that was probably what she wanted. 

Or rather, what her animal wanted?

Amy realized that Ana-Sofia's animal, whatever it was, was probably out on the surface which is why there was no reasoning with her. But Amy knew, from bitter experience, that whatever happened while the animal was in charge was still something Ana-Sofia had to experience as a human.

Shoring up whatever authority one can have with a naked, panting friend draped over their lap, Amy looked at Ana-Sofia sternly. “Okay, apparently we're going to do this. I'm going to be your log. I'm going to help you with this. But we're not going to get crazy. I want you to still feel good about you. So I'm going to talk to you all through it so that wherever you are in there, you know whats happening.”

Ana-Sofia was whining now and pushing herself into Amy's lap, acting for all intents and purposes as though Amy had said nothing. “Cool beans. Glad we're on the same page.”

Amy help Ana-Sofia into straddling her lap and she tentatively rubbed her hands down Ana-Sofia's back. The woman positively keened at the sensation and pushed back into it, dipping her hips to grind down on Amy on the front side. Amy's member was already fairly swollen but she nearly bucked at the sensation. The moisture that was leaking from the other woman could only be described as copious. Amy's pants were soaked on the first grind and completely dripping within moments. The miasma of sex thickened even more. Amy let Ana-Sofia explore and writhe around on her, while keeping her touches G-rated and soothing. 

Finally, the omega had enough and started whining with more earnest while pulling on Amy's arms. Amy could feel Ana-Sofia's sex rubbing against her member through the wet layer of cotton. She knew the other women needed an orgasm so ease the ache, even temporarily. But Amy had never been on the giving end of another woman's orgasm before. And being on the giving end of an orgasm with herself had a very different angle. She thought quickly about what she did to get herself off when an idea came to her. She turned Ana-Sofia around in her arms. She came easily, bending quickly to compliance at a mere suggestion of shifting. 

Amy sat back up on the bed, resting against a pillow with Ana-Sofia pulled into her lap, Amy's front to her back. Narrating everything she was doing for the human's benefit, Amy gently explored the front of Ana-Sofia's body with her hands, pressing soothing touches anywhere that she sighed for the animal's benefit. She cupped the other woman's breasts, finding her to be sensitive and responsive to tweaking the nipples and gripping them tightly. She trailed her fingers down her belly, watching as goosebumps followed in her wake. 

Finally, she smoothed her finger tips down the toffee gold belly into the thatch of hair at the core of her body. Ana-Sofia's legs splayed wide and her hips tilted up in invitation. She turned her head to nuzzle into Amy's neck and moaned as Amy dipped into the moisture there. Amy closed her eyes to focus. She felt through the folds until she found the clit, a bit longer and thicker than her own, and started to circle it with her pointer. Ana-Sofia gasped out loud and started rocking lewdly with the motion. The two bumped against each other with opposite motions a few more times. Before Amy could even out with a steady rhythm, Ana-Sofia was shaking in her arms and crying out in release. 

She lay panting and still for a moment so Amy took the opportunity to hydrate her. Wiping the slippery slick off her hand on the bedsheet, she grabbed the Gatorade. She was able to tilt back the other woman's throat and have her down half the bottle and take two bites of a granola bar before Ana-Sofia started twist and whine again. Amy wasted less time acquainting herself with the rest of the omega's body and instead focused on bringing her to climax again. This time she learned that, while she, herself, preferred to do full circles around her clit, Ana-Sofia seemed to have a preference for stimulating the right side of her clit and even the lips of her sex. The woman was panting and spent again in no time so Amy got the rest of the drink and granola bar into her. 

Instead of napping then though, the way she expected, Ana-Sofia instead roused fairly quickly for a third round. She reached behind her to cup Amy's swollen dick. The member was painfully engorged and the other woman's grip on it was both delightful relief and wince-inducing. Apparently, the omega had a specific request. 

The coyote's ears were perked and his body literally vibrated with energy. 

I know, dude. But no. So chill. 

Amy shifted to get out from under Ana-Sofia. The omega laid flat on the bed, rutting against the rucked up blankets in absence of the alpha. Amy stepped to the side and undressed, dropping her clothes into one spot on the floor so she can get back to them later. Her cock stood out long and proud, dripping with precome and her nipples were erect from her tender breasts. 

She looked down at herself, amused, briefly. I'm sure there's weird fetish sites I'd make a killing on. 

She then put a knee on the bed and leaned over Ana-Sofia with her body. The other woman stilled and raised her body to push against the skin on skin contact. “Listen, Ana-Sofia. I think your omega needs a little more. So, I'm going to … you know,” she dipped her hips against Ana-Sofia's rear suggestively and Ana-Sofia moaned in response. 

“I know you're not in a place to say whether or not you actually want this,” Ana-Sofia's body rolled under her as she raised her rump against Amy again, moaning even louder. “...yeah, well, the rational part of you anyway. But I'm going to go slow. And I think we should talk about this later when we're not, you know-” 

Amy choked off her explanation because Ana-Sofia's motions had gotten focused, rubbing herself up and down against Amy's tumescent member, sliding it between the cheeks of her ass with dirty grinds. The sensation on her member was enough to have her gasping for air. Being sufficiently distracted from words as she was, Amy instead just gave over to the motion. She ground with Ana-Sofia and the two found a rhythm of rubbing and alternatively moaning with each other. Amy breathed in the stench of sex and felt her eyes burning as pleasure radiated outwards through her limbs. 

She tried not to focus to deeply on what she was doing, just felt the sensations and allowed her body just to respond. She shifted a bit to grind lower and Ana-Sofia accommodated immediately. Some pushing and pulling of legs and suddenly Amy felt herself slide into Ana-Sofia. The omega must have felt it too because her voice dropped an octave in satisfaction and she rumbled out a low “Yessssssss.”

The coyote was ecstatic.

Amy rocked into her, trying her best to brace herself on her arms. Ana-Sofia rocked in tandem from underneath, but Amy still had to push from her knees and arms to piston her hips in and out. The slide felt deliciously satisfying but her legs and shoulders started to shake with strain very quickly. 

Jesus, how do dudes do this?!

She kept trying find an even rhythm but gave it up as a lost cause since even holding herself Amy found herself sweating profusely and panting into the other woman's ear like a bad prom date.

God, not only am I having sex with a woman, but I'm sucking at it!

Amy reapplied herself to the task with more vigor, silently urging Ana-Sofia to climax already. She cooed to her as the woman groaned, uttering encouragement. Then Ana-Sofia clenched up, shivering and groaning low and long. Amy fucked her through it, urging it to last. When she finally relented and released into the pillows beneath her with a sigh, Amy stopped and gently pulled out. She smoothed the dark strands out of Ana-Sofia's face and smoothed her hand down her sweat-slick back. 

Well, that happened.

It seemed she immediately settled into sleep. So, Amy went up to get a washcloth and a refill on Gatorade and snacks. Her cock was swollen purple and angry. She walked wide to accommodate the sensitivity of the member as it swung between her legs.

Her coyote was in the corner, slumped in defeat. 

Are...? Are you pouting?

He looked at her, then listlessly slumped in the other direction. 

Ignoring him, Amy wiped herself down with the washcloth. She rinsed then gave Ana-Sofia's sleeping form the same treatment, taking time to smooth some cool water on her forehead. She made sure snacks and drink were at the ready then flopped onto the bed with Ana-Sofia to sleep before the next round. She looked at her friend's face in repose. Ana-Sofia's face was naturally open and cheery. So, in repose, she looked completely calm and peaceful. 

Amy contemplated the sex they just had. The sex they will have again. She waited for something to happen. Some kind of sign, or some kind of newfound awareness of something. She had lost just lost some kind of virginity, she supposed.

Having sex like a man. Having sex with a woman.

She considered this a moment, waiting to feel the difference. All she felt, really, was that she was tired. As she lay there, her body started to feel heavy and her lids drooped closed. 

Maybe it'll hit me tomorrow.


	22. The Bookstore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two finished displaying all the new merch tastefully in the window and started to relocate the old merch somewhere in the crowded shop. They were debating making the Harry Potter area smaller (“It's Harry Potter, Cael! That shit is sacred!” “According to last month's numbers, its really not.”) or if they should move the botanical books (“Who on earth even reads this shit.” “How are you asking that? You live in farm country.”) when the bell jingled to announce the arrival of someone.

He clicked out of the inventory website with satisfaction once he submitted the order. Doing inventory was always such a hassle. You'd think that with the printed word being the endangered species that it was, that keeping track of a shopful of books would get easier. Not harder. But counting all the merchandise every quarter turned out to be the most annoying part of owning this store.

Being now done for the quarter, Cael rubbed his hands through his hair with frustrated relief. Next on his to do list was payroll. Scratch that, inventory was the second most annoying part of owning this store, with the bimonthly payroll taking the honor as the first most annoying thing. He rubbed his scalp again and closed his laptop.

Apparently payroll was happening tomorrow.

“Hey boss! Where do these go?”

Cael leaned out of his closet of an office to see one of his employee, Kayla, carrying in today's delivery. He'd gone and ordered a bunch of merchandise from some big CW show.

“By the front window! We want them sold before that show's not popular anymore!”

His store was part bookstore, part nerd girl headquarters for the residents of Lewiston, Montana. It was also part knitter's headquarters and he even hosted a weekly fantasy football league. When he admitted it to himself, he knew his bookstore was only bookstore in title. To survive, he'd had to adapt to what would sell and his store was whatever the small town needed it to be that day.

He cleaned up the inventory paperwork mess in his office, then headed out to help Kayla with the window display. Like all his other employees, Kayla was one of the local high school students. Given how small his bookstore was, and how seasonal his coverage needs were, he never really tried to hire anyone who needed more than part-time employment. Instead, he communicated with one of the guidance counselors at the local high school, and got access to a solid stream of reliable and smart teenagers who wanted a chance to boost their resume on their way to more interesting places.

Kayla was one such reliable and smart teenager, working in the afternoons and on weekends. She always smiled brightly when she greeted customers, showed up at least 20 minutes early and got all the shift tasks done whenever she was scheduled. She also evaded all questions about her home life and was always the first to offer to take someone else's shift. Cael often had to remind her about child labor laws and their role in preventing her from working too much. She seemed deflated by these talks so he'd taken to just letting her hang out in the spare rooms upstairs. As an employee, she has a key to the building. And after making it clear that she's not allowed to work all the time, but that he couldn't stop her from just hanging out in the space upstairs, Cael noticed that her brights smiles seemed more genuine.

He suspected her home life wasn't great. He also suspected she spent more time in the space upstairs than he was actually comfortable with. He never asked. And she never volunteered.

When he first came to Lewiston, he moved into the renovated apartment upstairs. He had since relocated into a house, but all the furnishings he brought with him from Wyoming were left in the apartment. His old dorm couch, his outdated PlayStation, even his old flat screen were abandoned in the house upgrade. He trusted Kayla, and knew she wouldn't abuse the privilege. But he was aware of the liability nightmare of a teenager having full access to a fully furnished, unsupervised apartment.

As a result, he tended to check in on her personal life more. As they organized stuffed animals, buttons and pennants, he asked her about the kids at school she knew and what her prom plans were. It was still early, but one of his other high school employee already had her dress picked out.

“I probably won't go.” Kayla wrestled with the display case.

“Why not?” He reached out a hand to steady the base while she screwed in the top.

She quirked an eyebrow at him and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, other than the fact that its lame, why not?” She laughed at this.

Cael never thought he'd end up as the teenager whisperer, but over the years, many of his employees' parents tell him how happy they are since their kid started working for him. How much more their kid talks to them, or how easy it is for them to get their kids to do their homework. Cael always accepted the compliments with gratitude, but inwardly rolled his eyes. The kids working for him were more than their grades or how they made their parents feel. It annoyed him how this seemingly obvious information seemed lost on so many of the closest people to these kids.

“It IS lame!” Kayle swiped her oversized bangs out of her eyes again. Her dark hair was cut, at one point, in a pixie to frame her face, but had now overgrown so it was constantly hiding her face. Her wide glasses and baggy clothes served to hide everything else.

“This year's theme is James Bond. James Bond! Who even watches that?” She started then on a rant about the ridiculousness of parties even needing to have themes or why proms bother with themes when everyone's goal was to either get drunk or laid. Her attitude suggested that this was a stupid mentality, but Cael couldn't figure out if it was the drunk or the laid that she protested more.

The two finished displaying all the new merch tastefully in the window and started to relocate the old merch somewhere in the crowded shop. They were debating making the Harry Potter area smaller (“It's Harry Potter, Cael! That shit is sacred!” “According to last month's numbers, its really not.”) or if they should move the botanical books (“Who on earth even reads this shit.” “How are you asking that? You live in farm country.”) when the bell jingled to announce the arrival of someone.

Cael turned to look at the arriving customer and instantly deflated.

Toni.

She swept in on a cloud of perfume. He was never sure if she went heavy with it or if his cat was just sensitive to it. Either way, he could always smell Toni from the next room over. Her wide gray eyes and blond locks were beautiful, as always. She smiled hesitantly at him from the entryway.

To his side, Cael heard Kayla groan and move away.

He felt bad. He knew his breakup had been rough for the staff. But to be fair, his staff had way more relationship drama than he did. So he let it go.

He waved Toni in. “Hey, whats up?”

She pulled a reusable bag from her shoulder and held it aloft in his direction. “I have some stuff for you.”

He nodded. He'd expected as much. For the remnants of a four year relationship, the bag looked suspiciously light. He waved her to follow him as he went back towards the office. He didn't want to have Kayla overhear too much.

Once he got back to the office, he realized his mistake. The office was small. Tiny. And he did not enjoy being in such close quarters with Toni with no escape. As she entered after him and closed the door behind her, he figured it was too late and merely turned to her.

“So, here's the stuff.” She lifted the bag back towards him. He accepted the bag then turned for his stash. He had been cultivating a collection the past few weeks, waiting for her to stop by. There were two boxes in this office and three more at the house. Instead of thinking too much about why he had so much of her stuff and she had so little of his, he put it away and lifted the boxes towards her.

“There's more at the house, so when you can stop by...”

She accepted the boxes from him. “Yeah, if I had a key, I could just go get them. But I don't so...”

Toni had never made passive aggressive comments before. He knew she didn't like that she didn't have a key to his place. But she was never mean about it before.

Before the break up was official.

To be honest, they had been breaking up by degrees for months. It started out slow. Cael's not even entirely sure when it started. But there were little things here and there that they would have talked about in the first and second years of their relationship. But towards the end, the little things went unaddressed: going on a weekend trip without telling the other, cancelling plans with little notice and less explanation, scheduling things with other people on their typical date nights. They had been polite to each other through it all. They both knew what was happening, but had decided by some unspoken agreement to be civil about it.

At least, until it became official.

That happened the morning Cael headed over to Toni's, breakfast in hand, just in time to watch her coworker leave her house. She and Brent have been “just friends” the entire time he knew her. He never worried and never felt jealous. But watching him leave his girlfriend's place that early in the morning was a kick in the gut.

Cael checked the time.

Then he checked the text from Toni asking him to come over.

Yep, he was on time. And there per her request.

She wanted him to see this.

He put that away and walked up to her door. He did have a key to her place. She gave it to him early on in the relationship, so he just let himself in.

“Cael? Is that you?” She shouted from the bedroom. He shook his head as he deposited the breakfast and coffee on her kitchen counter.

“Yeah, just me.” He stood there looking around her kitchen as though it held a clue. She came in then, wearing her favorite silk robe. As she entered the room she stopped. She looked at him. He looked right back.

He saw Brent leave her house two minutes ago.

She knew.

He knew that she knew.

She stood there in silence, chin jutted out silently.

He sighed. Took her key from his key chain, painstakingly unwound it from the coil, then rested it on the counter.

When he looked back to her, she had tears streaming down her face.

“So, that's it?” She asked.

“That's what you decided.”

Then he left.

The two had only spoken logistics since then. Communicating who was going to which friend's birthday party, who got the dog (the little shelter rescue was definitely Toni's dog, but Cael had gone through the motions of joint pet ownership because it seemed to make her happy) and what to tell their families.

It's only been logistics, but Toni had managed to slip in passive aggressive comments each time in an ugly way that he'd never seen on her before and definitely did not like. Each time he put it away, but each time it caused his metaphorical fur to rankle.

Standing here in the office, swapping stuff, seemed as good a time as any to say something.

“Yeah, you didn't have a key. You mad about that?”

“Yes, I goddamn am mad about it!” Her explosion was surprising and sudden. “I never had a key! I never had a drawer! You never asked me to move in! We never took a trip with your parents! I've never met Richard! You never talk about why you left Wyoming! ...”

She went on for several minutes about things they never did, things he never said. Everything she was saying was accurate, but he had no idea where the vitriol was coming from. When she finally ran out of steam for a moment, he tried to answer her.

“Yeah, I …. I never knew those things bothered you.”

“You never knew...?!? People do those things, Cael!” She was shouting at him now, and he was certain Kayla was getting it verbatim on the other side of the store.

“People move in together! People share their lives with each other! But you don't! You never share anything with me! Every month you have camping trips! Every month! In the dead of winter AND the heat of summer! Every! Month! You go with the Campdens! You go with Richard! But you never take me and you never talk about them!” She glared at him wild eyed. He'd never seen her look so... desperate.

Her perfume had somehow thickened and was now choking him in the tiny room.

His “camping trips” were actually the full moon nights where he let his jaguar do her thing. She was always caged up in his human body, the least he could do was let her run for a few hours during the full moon. Most often he went by himself, driving out to the nearest national park. But sometimes he went to the Campdens and joined the pack run.

He needed to run with the pack, in order to stay a member here. But he hated it. Hated the looks. Hated the questions. He avoided it as much as he can. He was lonely as a result, but there were no other options.

The best full moons were the ones where he met Richard somewhere. The two would barbecue something, drink beer, then run for hours. And for a whole two days, Cael would feel normal. Accepted.

He often wondered if that accepted feeling is what pack was supposed to feel like. Then he'd put it away and do something else.

Toni though. Toni yelling about him about the full moon runs and the key threw him through a loop. Of course he didn't invite her or tell her about them. She was a human. And therefore on a need to know basis with the supernatural. She also didn't have a key for that reason. No need to have her walking in on him if he beta-shifted while moving furniture around or something.

Dating someone for four years without outing himself as a freak of nature was a damned feat. But he succeeded. Apparently though, it blew up in his face in a different way. He knew there was a maximum level of closeness they would ever achieve. He was sad about it, but he did what he felt he had to do. He just didn't really think about whether she would be fine with it.

Or maybe he did, and had put that away with everything else.

“You never talk about anything,” she finished with a quivering voice. Her tears had started in earnest now and she dug into her purse for some Kleenex.

Cael was at a loss. He knew they were ending. He didn't realize he had been hurting her this badly.

“That girl, you been seeing her what? Two years now?” Richard took a swig of his beer. The venison they were cooking smelled delicious but wasn't done yet. Cael was chomping at the bit to get to it.

He took a swig of his own brew, “Yep.”

The sun was lowering slowly but the moon was already out. He could feel the jaguar under his skin.

“Two years is a little bit.” He turned to find Richard looking right at him.

Richard wasn't his alpha, and they weren't pack-mates. Cael knew now what those relationships meant, and Richard wasn't those things. But they did have a connection. Friends wasn't the right word, but they did make time for each other. And when Richard pinned him with a look, such as the one he was wearing right now, Cael felt the need to answer it.

Cael occasionally felt betrayed by his body. By the omega need to obey. Some of the Campden alphas made life hard for him that first year by abusing his omega trait. Since then, Cael gets bile in his throat whenever someone tries to will him into submission. Not all alphas have the alpha-voice, but they do try.

But it was never like that with Richard. Richard willing him to speak felt more kind. More genuine. Like if Richard was his uncle or something. Richard was the only alpha Cael didn't hate.

“Yeah, it is,” Cael confirmed. He sipped his beer some more.

“She know?”

Cael barked out a laugh. “Of course not! That's totally against the rules, dude.”

Richard seesawed his head in contemplation. “In most cases. But you can talk to your Alpha. To let her in. She'd be invited to pack things. Human mates find it easier if they're a part of things, you know.”

Cael did know. The pack gatherings are made up of mostly humans: human kids running around with shifted pups, wives and omegas bringing out plates of food while the men played football, arguing over how much advantage a were has against a human. If he asked, Toni would get invited. He'd bring her to the gatherings and maybe the alphas would lay off their sniffing at him every time.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was a good idea.

Then his cat shifted under his skin and he felt her flex her claws a few times in agitation. During the full moon, he felt her more. So right now, he was completely clear on her feelings on the matter.

It always came back to this. His cat doesn't like Toni.

She could never be his mate.

_He_ liked Toni. Thought the world of her in fact. But when they were together he often felt a restlessness to move and leave that he knew wasn't his. And when they _were together _he'd often have a hard time focusing. Like some part of him was bored and ready to do something else. Which is not at all accurate. He finds his time with Toni in bed to be _very_ interesting and wants to focus wholeheartedly on her and what they're doing. For days if she'd let him.

But his cat is not so keen. Even now, with Richard talking about being mates, he feels that fur-being-pet-backwards feeling he gets when his cat is particularly upset. But what his cat wants is... well its not an option for him.

Being an omega, Cael learned early, and through trial by fire, what heats were. And his cat gets very vocal about what she wants during that time. For his first heat, Richard arranged for an alpha to come in from out of town. Matt? Mark? Cael tried to remember the guys' name. Which the name didn't really even matter because it was a guy! What the fuck?! Cael is not against gay men by any means, but he is definitely a straight dude. So being a hormonal mess where he was begging for something that he didn't want from someone he wasn't actually attracted to was his second most traumatic memory, firmly sandwiched between his first shift and being bitten. And... Max? Marco? Was very patient about it, gently taking care of him in between ..._taking care_ of him. But the memories of those three days still make Cael shudder.

He now has a system of locking himself inside his house with toys and water bottles and fights it out himself. Despite all the leering invites he gets from his alpha pack-mates. Despite how much his jaguar preens and struts during the cat-calling and sniffing. Despite all the pitying, worried advice from the older women in the pack about how unhealthy it is to go through heats alone. Despite the awkwardness of making excuses to Toni about why they can't see each other for those days. Despite everything, he has less cringeyness with his heats when he spends them alone.

Quentin! The guy's name was Quentin, Cael remembered suddenly. He remembered thinking how weird the name was.

Cael shook his head at himself. “I know a human mate would get invited into the pack. But that's just it, she's not my mate.”

The older man looked at Cael, confused. “The jaguar doesn't like her,” he explained.

Richard's eyebrows shot up at this. He slowly drank from his bottle, and responded in measured tones, “you and the cat are the same person, you know.”

Cael shook his head. This had been a sticking point for them throughout training. Cael, unlike everyone else he has met, experiences his cat as someone separate from him. Whereas every other were he's met seem to experience a unified front with their animal, his cat has opinions and feelings that he doesn't have and vice versa. And right now, their biggest source of contention is Toni.

Just another area of otherness for him, he guessed.

He knew it was in vain, but he tried again to talk it through with Richard. “You never disagree with your wolf?”

Richard went to open his mouth then abruptly shut it again as his eyes took on a thoughtful expression. After a pause he said, “once.”

He nodded to himself then went to check on their meal. “This is almost done, I say we eat then get this run on the road.”

The two never discussed it again, but Cael knew it was important. And since then, Richard had only been supportive of Cael's experience with Toni. The two never made plans for Toni and Richard to meet, because they both knew the relationship had a short shelf life.

Cael supposed he should have thought more about Toni's experience of that because now, seeing her red faced and angry, as she unleashed upon him in his closet of an office was something he was struggling to put away.

“You never talk about anything,” she continued, “and you were always fine without me. Fine taking your trips, fine canceling plans.”

She sniffed and her voice dropped to a whisper, “its like I didn't even matter to you.”

Cael waited for her to blow her nose. “You did matter to me, but you're the one who brought Brent over. How do I matter to you then?”

She looked at him with shock. Then ...pity? Like he was stupid? He had trouble naming the emotions he'd never seen on her face before. “I brought Brent over to see what'd you do. We stayed up late watching movies. I bitched about you. He crashed on the couch. I wanted to see if I mattered at all.”

She was shaking her head at him, “but you did nothing. You didn't even ask what happened. You just dropped your key and...” She waved her hand in a shooing motion to convey his up and leaving that morning.

Cael was floored. He had no idea. He knew they weren't communicating well, he didn't know it was quite _that _bad.

But, he realized, it did make sense. His jaguar defined everything about his life. The fact that he lived in Lewiston (a town that he hated), that he hung out with the Campdens (who he was uncomfortable around), that he took so many camping trips (which were the only times he felt alive), or that he'd have to bail on her for three days every four months (to suffer his own personal hormonal hell), were all things that made up who he was. And not being able to talk about any of it with her was hurting her.

Hurting them both, he realized with a shock.

He shook his head in dismay, “Toni. I am so, so sorry. I did this all wrong and I...” He looked at her helplessly.

“I'm sorry.”

She sniffed, tears running down her face, “Its too late.”

He nodded. “I know, I'm not asking for forgiveness or a second chance. I just wanted you to know.”

She nodded back at him, crying harder. “Thank you.”

He nodded back to her in acknowledgment. They kept nodding to each other like mutual bobbleheads. In any other circumstance, it would have been funny. But here, it was just tense and sad.

She nodded a bit before finally deciding to leave. She turned abruptly and awkwardly fumbled with the lock, the boxes still in her arms, until Cael stepped in to help. She stiffened in his close proximity then bolted from him as soon as the door was opened.

Cael waited a beat, until he heard the chime of her exit. He double checked that his office was straightened. But the storm that just blew in was only an emotional one, so the papers and files on his desk were deceptively tidy.

When he went into the main part of the store, he found Kayla busily straightening and dusting the shelves. For being without supervision for this long, she seemed remarkably productive. He also noted that she decided to sacrifice the botanical books display for the leftover merchandise without his input. He knew that normally he'd be amused by this, but right then he felt nothing. He felt drained and emptied. And not in a pleasant post-moon-run kind of way.

“You okay, boss?” He knew it was bad when one of the kids called him boss. They only did that when they wanted something or if things were bad. He smiled at her, attempting some levity. Given her grimace back, it didn't seem to work. So he deflated.

“You know, I may need to go home,” he said to her. How quickly she nodded in agreement was also a bad sign. He shuffled back to the office to close out any open programs and shut down. He double checked the tasks and gave her the rundown of closing, to which she rolled her eyes and literally shooed him out.

He mused briefly at the state of affairs where _Kayla _was taking care of _him_, when it should have been the other way around. But then he put it away and set off home.

“It's just me and you then,” he said out loud to his jaguar.

In that moment, the same loneliness was felt by both of them.


End file.
